Philately, e-post-office, and Speed Post

Unlike the last, highly critical, post at this space about the Government of India's e-ventures, this one talks about an e-service from the GOI that highly impressed me.

Welcome to the Indiapost Web Site. The so titled official website of the Indian Postal Department provides almost everything that you expect from the postal department, and features I had not expected the Indian Govt would have at their site—and it works, unlike others—and not many people would be aware of.

The site in general is cluttered, with a vertical news ticker (I wonder why is the government obsessed with vertical tickers) on the top part, lot of links on the left panel that could be moved to a sitemap, and a section at the bottom for internal use. The remainder of the page that lists 'some of their services' and displays a couple of newest stamps launched, and a few links to the different kinds of posts encircling the India Post logo are interesting and useful.

A few impressive features available are:

• Track your speed post: The most unexpected online feature from India Post. The movement tracking gives you a list of all the stops your article has made, the means of transport (air/train/road) from stop to stop, the id of the bag which contained your post, and the departure time from that post office. This is similar to the tracking services by DHL and FedEx, and better than BlueDart's.
  
  Not only does it allow you to track the movement of your speed post, it also sends you an email confirming the delivery, if you had registered your email id while tracking it. You may also query the current position via an sms and receive the info back as another sms.
• Pinsearch: Highly usefule feature, allows you to search by address (city, area) or Pin Code from a common search bar. It also displays a few nearest search results if the searched string is not found. Searching by district and state can give you details of all post offices in the district/state.
  
• Instant/Electronic Money Order: These can be accessed from ePost Office, a plain, sleek, and sexy site that looks like will replace the current drab one at some point in future. It currently lets you send moneyorders online to your folks who still use MOs, especially rural folk whose villages have a Post office instead of a bank. Connecting people, I must say.
• Philately: A service targetted at philatelists, who can now buy their favourite stamps online, even though I wonder how many people are still into stamp-collection. The feature is available at the aforementioned alternative site, and stamps are priced starting Rs 5, but an order has to be minimum Rs 200.
• Postage Calculator: Well, not really that useful but a good-to-have feature nevertheless. Just in case you want to compare the Indian Post and your favourite courier company.
• RTI: This page lets you access information about the department online, without having to file an RTI applicaiton and/or visiting the nearest post office.

There are a few bummers as well: The new site's security certificate is not trusted, gives VB errors on a few links and spews out the stack trace on your browser, and the linked Hindi web site is still under construction. But overall, a very good attempt by the Department of Posts. With millions of people still using the post offices for postage and banking in the rural India, in addition to post offices doubling up as registrars to 'Aadhaar' UIDAI, the online services can be a good step to promote post offices in urban India. There is need for a little marketing.