With private courier companies eating into the revenues of postal department, the government on Thursday sought to give India Posts exclusive rights to carry and deliver letters weighing up to 300 grams.
"The monopoly over a specific part of the letter mail of all descriptions up to a specific weight limit is essential as Department of Post is required to fulfil the Universal Service Obligation, which involves postal coverage to financially non-viable areas at affordable rates for the common man," said the department. (See below: The draft Indian Post Office Amendment Bill, 2006)
Charging private courier companies of operating only in "creamy" areas and big business centres with the sole motive of earning profits, the DoP justified the move, saying that the requirement of keeping a small segment of postal business was exclusive privilege aimed at providing service to deprived class of people."
To address the issue of accountability and transparency, the government proposed setting up of a regulatory body as well as a dispute settlement tribunal.
The draft Bill also proposed levying a fee of up to 10 per cent of revenue of courier companies with a turnover of Rs 25 lakh (Rs 2.5 million) and more towards USO Fund as also a registration and renewal fee of Rs 25,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively for small and medium couriers.
The fee would, however, go up to Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) for registration and 5 lakh (Rs 500,000) for renewal for large couriers operating nationally and internationally.
The small of medium companies have been exempted from contribution to USO Fund.
The DoP claimed that the main thrust of the proposed amendment in the IPO Act, 1898 is to enable the department work in a liberal and competitive environment and primarily safeguard consumers' interest, besides bring in more responsibility, accountability and transparency in the mail sector.
The main objective of bringing the amendment was to "achieve financial self sufficiency, reducing DoP's dependency on budgetary support."
On the issue of setting up a Disputes Settlement Tribunal, the department said it was for redressal of disputes between registering authority and (among) registered service providers and consumers.
On exclusive rights to carry letters up to 300 grams, the DoP said that government may come out with a separate notification.
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