Before the internet changed our lives drastically, our parents and grandparents had fond memories of the neighbourhood Khaki-clad Dakiya (postman) who was the point of contact for communications, money transfers and more. This person worked at the neighbourhood post office and had a sound understanding of the neighbourhood, and everyone staying there.
In total, the Department of Posts (DoP), now known as India Post, has a workforce of more than 4,50,000 people across the country, working out of 1,56,000 post offices across the country- from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. About a generation before WhatsApp messaging meant distances were only measured physically, the postman was the only representative of the government, offering communication services, money transfer and a window to the outside world.
Though ‘snail mail’ is now dead, India Post still remains a crucial part of rural life, doubling as the villager’s bank, insurance agent, facilitating remittances and much more. Despite physical mailing of documents now being redundant, India Post is still responsible for delivering bulky packages to far-flung areas of the country, even by new-age competitors who have to rely on it for remote, difficult-to-access pincodes.
Despite its vast infrastructure and manpower, India Post remains a largely unutilized asset for the government, mostly due to a lack of political will.
How India Post can bridge the gap to expand its services
Though private courier companies have taken over the logistics market in the last 20 years, the neighbourhood ‘dakiya’ (postman) still remains a trusted, familiar face, especially in rural areas. Most courier companies in the market have a wide network of warehouses, but they still have to depend on India Post for deliveries in highly inaccessible regions- in rural areas without pucca roads or in highly inaccessible geographical regions of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and the North East. For shipment requests here, private courier companies continue to use India Post for the final leg of delivery.
The challenge here is that India Post does have the manpower and infrastructure to pull it off itself, but the challenge lies in how the government will use the service to meet its needs.
The Indian Railways – India Post collab gamechanger
Currently, India post has collaborated with the Railways for its Door-to-Door Rail Post Gati Shakti Express Cargo Service. Since its launch in 2023, the service has been turning into a nationwide success, with India Post now using the Railways as the middle-mile solution provider while it manages pickup and drop. India Post is using the predictable timetable of express trains for this service, with a competitive rate and low-cost insurance.
Though the service allows even private operators to use it, the limited space on express trains is a concern, though the government has experimented with a dedicated Rapid Cargo Train Service for daily transport of perishable goods for the remote Kashmir Valley through the new Kashmir Rail Link.
A hugely delayed, but welcomed solution
India Post has migrated most of its post offices to a cloud-native platform, with postmen being issued Android-based smartphones to manage parcels and even accept digital payments for Cash On Delivery (COD) shipments.
The government has spent ₹8,500 crore to roll out MeghRaj 2.0, an Advanced Postal Technology (APT) platform that replaces older SAP-based legacy systems. Though quite late to the party, the government has shown it means business by developing the software in-house at the Centre for Excellence in Postal Technology (CEPT).
After completing training of its huge, 4.5 lakh+ employees, the government rolled out the system on August 4,2025 even though there were a few teething issues that lasted 24 hours. Following the rollout, the upgraded system has managed over 3.2 million booking and 3.7 million deliveries on an average day. For the first time, India Post office counters accepted UPI payments, even though the system wasn’t working well in remote areas.
What India Post should do going forward
Though India Post has made strides in improving its services, the true reinvention will come when the organization changes its mindset from an old school government department to a ‘customer service obsessed logistics player.
India Post does not need to compete with Delhivery, Ekart Logistics, Amazon or other courier firms, it can continue to boost its revenues by partnering with them for last mile deliveries in remote areas through its large organization system.
Collaborating with the Railways, India Post can find a way to expand its Rail Post Gati Shakti Express Cargo Service, where it can serve remote locations on behalf of other courier companies, a service it currently already provides.
India Post is currently collaborating with ISRO and IIT Hyderabad to replace the current PIN code system with a highly efficient Digital Postal Index Number (DIGIPIN) system for creating a unique identifier for every address, on the lines of the Aadhar card. This would digitize the knowledge of the entire 4.5 lakh + postmen network, making deliveries and other services accessible to those staying in the most remote locations. Though it could take years for all households to get a DIGIPIN, this initiative could become a game-changer for the state-run logistics giant, helping it potentially earn crores in licensing fees.
The Central Government has set an ambitious target of increasing India Post’s revenue by 50-60% in the next 3-4 years. Though the efforts to date have borne fruit- postal circles have achieved almost 80% of the ₹3,324 Crore revenue target for Q2 FY25-26, higher margin segments, including parcels and international business, have struggled to grow. The government has quietly shifted its deadline to make India Post a ‘profit centre’ to 2029, with the target to make India Post a formidable player primarily in Logistics Competitiveness and Financial Inclusion.
Will India Post’s modernisation efforts stay consistent till then? That’s a question everyone seeks.
