Govt wants to make Post Offices backbone of rural India for financial inclusion: Minister

New Delhi: Post offices have been transformed during the Modi regime and attempts are being made to make them a backbone of rural India for financial inclusion of communities, especially women, Minister of State for Communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani informed the Rajya Sabha. Responding to supplementaries on post offices, the Minister of State for Communications said while on average national banks have 20 per cent of women's accounts, after the initiation of India's Post Payments Bank more than 45 per cent of women's accounts have been opened in them. "Post offices have been transformed and make them a backbone for financial inclusion of rural communities, especially women," he told the house.

Pemmasani said under IT modernisation, the government has spent Rs 5,700 crore and we have given 1.4 lakh mobile phones, 1.4 lakh thermal printers and 3 lakh biometric devices to make every postman a mobile ATM so that they can go to the doorstep of every woman housewife. "Not everything that the government provides should be considered as part of a business. There is a moral, social responsibility that we make our services achievable but also affordable for everybody," he said.

On how many post offices have been shut down since 2019, the minister said when UPA was in power, there were a total of 1.55 lakh post offices and they reduced 700 post offices in the 10 years. "After we came, we have increased about 10,500 post offices, totalling 1.65 lakh post offices. Out of these, 90.1 per cent are located in rural places and far-reaching places. "The goal of the government of India is to have a post office in a minimum 3 km distance and we have now connected every village with 1.65 lakh post offices. There is no closure of any post office," he said.

The minister said though post offices have been there since 1800s, "no one other than PM Modi imagined that there should be an export centre and we have envisioned how to help our women, especially self-help groups and we have designed one product for one district". "We have tried to export innovative rural products across the world, we have designed one DNK (Dak ghar Niryat Kendras) for each district. There are a total of 790 districts, but due to the success of this scheme, we designed over 1,000 DNKs. It is kind of a continuous hand-holding for rural women to make their lives better. "The DNKs (Dak ghar Niryat Kendras) have handled 2.2 lakh shipments and Rs 54 crores as of today," the minister informed members.