Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh
Chief Secretary I Y R Krishna Rao on Saturday emphasised the need to leverage
rural post office networks for financial inclusion and delivery of State
government releases, including salaries to anganwadi workers and payment of utility
bills, among others.
"The
utilisation of the rural postal network by the State government should be
further explored and expanded," an official release quoted Rao as saying.
He was
reviewing the aspect of coordination with the Postal Department for financial
inclusion programme of the State government at the Secretariat here.
The Postal
Department is already involved in the distribution of wages of NREGS and
pensions in 383 Mandals out of a total of 661 in the State.
"The
department had 8,793 Branch Post Offices and 1,503 Sub Post Offices and 59 Head Post Offices spread across 661 Mandals of the State. All of them could be
utilised for delivery of all government services and releases to farmers,
widows, students and also SHG groups as part of the financial inclusion
programme," Rao added.
He said the
State Rural Development Department would be asked to give a feed back on the
ongoing programmes and the feasibility of utilising the entire postal network
in other remaining Mandals for a variety of other services and deliveries.
According to
the official, the number of other government schemes that could be brought
under the postal network were disbursements of the 'Ma Inti Mahalakshmi'
scheme, salaries to anganwadi workers, Janani Suraksha scheme of Health
department, collection of electricity, water and other bills, municipal taxes,
sales tax, etc, payment of scholarships, allowances to the disabled in areas in
which their network exists.
Possibility
of sale of non-judicial stamp papers through rural post offices involving
government schemes like sale of agricultural inputs would also be examined, he
added.
PTI
