India post launches E-Com portal
15, Dec 2018
Prelims level : Economy- e-commerce
Mains level : Infrastructure, Inclusive growth and issues arising from it
In News:
- India Post on Friday launched its own ecommerce website to help sellers, particularly rural artisans and SHGs sell their products across the country.
Explained:
- The Department of Posts has been focusing on e-commerce sector to increase its revenue receipts. The Department facilitates has collected and remitted more than Rs 2,700 crore under cash-on-delivery till January 2018 since its introduction in December 2013.
- The ongoing e-commerce business segment resulted in increase of 13 per cent revenue of India Post in the 2017-18 and total revenue the department earned under Speed Post till January 2018 was Rs 1,502.60 crore.
- India Post service will be able to pick up and deliver products in over 1.5 lakh places through its well spread out network.
- The newly launched online market place would also have the policy to return products by a customer.
- Earlier, any decision related to change in parcel delivery rates or matching services of private players required approval from top officials, which was time-consuming.
- The DoP (Department of posts) has set up parcel directorate which is free to take decision to match the competition.
- India Post is open for registration of all vendors for e-commerce business. It will pick up products from vendor and deliver to doorstep of customers
Benefits of e-Commerce:
- It helps in bridging the gap between rural India and urban India
- It also gives a major boost to the traditional handicrafts sector in the rural India
- It reduces the disguised unemployment in agriculture sector by giving employment opportunities in small scale industries in village area
- It will greatly help in popularizing the niche products like the one GI (geographical indication) tagged from remotest corner of the rural area to the world and increases the profit of the people