India Posts has now allowed all individuals and corporates to get their custom printed postage stamp featuring their photo or design for Rs. 12 lakh.
India Post had earlier gifted Amazon India with its own postage stamp under the ‘My Stamp’ initiative. It had last year under the same initiative allowed its customers to convert their selfies into postage stamps for Rs. 300.
Now, India Post will print 60,000 custom postage stamps for any individual or a corporate for Rs. 12 lakh.
India Post is running the ‘My Stamp’ initiative to boost the exchange of handwritten letters which in turn would boost its revenue.
“We have opened up customised printing of ‘My Stamp’ for individuals and corporates. Anyone can get his logo or photo printed inside the stamp for net cost of Rs 12 lakh. There will be 5,000 sheets comprising 60,000 postage stamps,” said S.K. Sinha, Department of Posts Secretary.
Besides Amazon, India Post has in past issued customized stamps to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and has now received various proposals from a wide range of entities including educational institutions.
“We have proposals to print ‘My Stamp’ from Western Union, SNDT Women’s University, Allahabad High Court and many others. Till date we have proposals worth Rs 2 crore in this fiscal while total revenue from ‘My Stamp’ last fiscal was of Rs 2.83 crore,” Sinha added.
“India Post will examine proposal and it reserves the right to reject it,” Sinha clarified about the issuance of stamps to suspected or entities with notorious background.
India Post is expecting to receive revenue boost by Rs. 100 crore from the philately segment this fiscal and anticipates that ‘My Stamp’ initiative would contribute Rs. 60 crore to it.
The Department of Post expects its revenue to jump from Rs. 13,037.25 crore in FY16 to Rs. 15,000- 16,000 crore in FY16.
“There was fiscal deficit of about Rs. 5,500 crore which we have been able to contain. In next seven years, we will be able to break even,” Sinha added.
The Department of Post is seriously trying to push philately through various channels including educational institutions.
“We have written to Human Resource Development Ministry to include philately as part of course curriculum of class six or seven in schools. There was bleak attempt from our department on this but now we are following it up seriously,” Sinha said.
India Post has also introduced mail tracking by introducing bar codes on the letter boxes. The postmen will be provided with mobile phones for scanning the bar codes and uploading the number of letters or items collected in the letter boxes.
“We did a pilot by introducing bar codes on letter box in some states. Now we have decided to expand it to pan-India. Postmen will be given mobile phones using which they will scan barcode on letter box. They will also upload number of letter or items collected in that letter box.” Sinha said.
This would enable India Post for managing their mails efficiently which is 570 crore mails/annum.
India Post is taking a lot of efforts for pushing the usage of traditional letters. The idea of sending a handwritten letter in a custom printed sounds very cool to me, but it remains to be seen whether the users would like this idea and come back to frequently exchanging letters via traditional mail. It sounds like a distant reality to me. What do you think?