India Posts to foray into cargo

The Department of Posts (DoP) will be launching its own cargo and logistics services in the next three months. The department has decided to foray into the area of distribution by air, rail and road transport.

Though the exact investment figures of the plan are not known, the department has decided to set up 60 parcel post centres in major cities.

These computerised centres will be connected by rail and road ways. While a few centres would be set up on land exclusively acquired for them, a few others would share space with existing post offices.

The move has come through with DoP deciding to take advantage of its nation wide presence with 1,55,000 post offices.

In Mumbai, the centre would come up at Byculla. Besides Indian Railways, the department is in talks with Indian and Jet Airways.

"With the cargo industry growing, the department has decided to capitalise on its nationwide presence and provide quality services in door-to-door, business-to-customer, customer- to-customer and business-to-business operations," said John Samuel, general manager, business development and marketing.

The parcels to be handled will be bar coded so that there movement can be tracked easily. The department is expecting a revenue of more than Rs 100 crore this financial year.

"Though DoP handles a huge amount of parcels also "� people have a misconception that post is all about the mailing business. This move is all about establishing DoP in the cargo market," said Samuel.