More private firms are preferring postal services to private courier now. The Department of Post has registered a growth of 45% in business post and speed post services this year in Chennai region.
Even as the department is taking measures to encourage personal communication through letters among students, its business solutions service has witnessed growth compared to the previous fiscal. The department has earned a revenue of ₹162.04 crore this fiscal compared to ₹110.42 crore in 2017-18 in Chennai city region.
Traffic up
Officials of the Postal Department said several corporate firms were preferring speed post services among various business solutions offered. The traffic of speed post has gone up from 87 lakh delivered in 2017-18 to 1.37 crore this fiscal.
R. Anand, Postmaster General, Chennai City Region, said there had been an increase in new clients who enrolled for speed post services. For instance, this fiscal, there were 88 new customers for the ‘book now, pay later’ service compared to 74 new customers last year. Several banks used the postal services to despatch credit and debit cards through speed post. This could also be a reason for the growth rate. The time of delivery of speed post varies from a minimum of within 24 hours depending on the location, he said.
Business post centres set up in areas such as T.Nagar, Park Town and Tambaram bring in more bookings, officials said.