Gone are days that postal services were an integral part of Sri Lankan culture. According to a recent Postal Department survey, only 11% uses snail mail now, reports Divaina. The drop from over 90% in pre-1978 days is attributed to the widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including mobile phones, faxes and e-mail.
ICTs supplementing age-old postal services too is common. ‘Fax Money Orders’ have replaced the traditional ones. Transaction takes less than 30 minutes with a fax from one post office to another. Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) offers a value added service of sending telegrams without stepping to a post office. You inform the message with the address to SLT and they do the honours for you. Charges are added to the phone bill.
Sri Lanka, a country of approximately 20 million population, is served by a postal network of 4,738 post offices. One post office serves an average population of 4,300 and area of 14 square kilometers.
In 2007 Postal Department started offering non-postal services (limited banking and insurance services and sale of pre-paid phone cards) through post offices. However, such services remain to be popular.
The annual operating loss of the department for 2009 was LKR 2,472 million. (Aprox. USD 21 million) The number of letters delivered per inhabitant remains 21 with a slight drop from the previous years. Bulk of this, as the minister of Posts and Telecommunication correctly observes, can be business mail, most sent as per statutory requirements.
12 Comments
Chanuka Wattegama
A related item I saw after posting.
Sri Lanka Postal Department loses Rs. 150 million due to stamp frauds
Jun 05, Colombo: Sri Lanka Postal Department trade union sources say that the loss incurred to the Department due to malpractices in business mail amounts to Rs. 150 million annually.
The officials say that the reason for this loss is that the state and business firms use normal mail to post letters with the business name as the back address.
To post letters with business names as back address, the sender should pay postage of Rs. 15. But, many use the Rs. 5 postage for this purpose.
This malpractice is costly to be traced and the letters are delivered to the recipient as usual, prompting others as well to use Rs. 5 postage to post business letters, sources said.
The law is impractical here since the Postal Department can only ask the recipient to pay the balance, Postal Department sources said.
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_10A/Jun05_1275749472KA.php
Donald Gaminitillake
I post over 20 letters a month
Do received over 30 letters per month incl bank statements.
I would say they can do better by increasing to postage cost to Rs 10 flat. Also get the postman to collect the letters with an additional fee of Rs five.
We will be able to pay the fines 24 hour basis with additional service charge at main post offices
24 HRS ATM services may be encouraging at all post offices. Charge a fee.
They too make lots of money on unpaid money orders. I had a court case and was not allowed to en cash any payment form the defendant who sent me money orders. When we settle the case neither he nor I could not get the money orders reissued or paid.
The time limit is 2 years. Once the 2 year limit is gone — the money is gone with the wind.
Donald Gaminitillake
W.A Wijewardena
In the modern mobile phone, SMS, MMS, and internet era, postal services are used only for transmitting hard copies of documents. Thereagain, the quickness requirements have dictated that courier services are better and reliable transmitters than the postal services run by governmental authorities. Once the signatures in facsimile are accepted as authentic documents, even the small number of hard copies will be displaced with. At that stage, the postal services have to be either scrapped altogether or reoriented to meet the market requirements.
Postal authorities should think of these eventualities in advance and proper measures should be taken to meet the challenges.
Donald Gaminitillake
Quote
Once the signatures in facsimile are accepted as authentic documents,
unquote
This will not happen in Lanka. None of the embassy’s in lanka will accept a photocopy or a fax copy as an accepted document. They need original bank statements, original copies of invitations etc. All these embassy’s are from so called developed world. They talk of save trees etc but in Lanka we need send whole heaps of originals and photocopies.
Also the inland revenue department in Lanka. They too need whole set of originals and a set of photocopies. They do not have computer links between the same department sections. Eg between VAT and income tax, or income tax and with holding tax. everything is done manually. miracle of Asia.
Donald Gaminitillake
let us change the standard
Nalaka Gunawardene
A generation ago, until 1980, a single govt department handled posts and telecom. It was bifurcated and the telecom sector evolved, breaking the decades-old state monopoly and allowing private operators within a regulatory framework. The post remains a monopoly supplier of services – in the absence of competition, it sees no reason to innovate or improve. In fact, Sri Lanka Post has been trying to block domestic couriers who provide a reliable delivery service at a price, saying no one else has legal authority to deliver items!
Increasingly, the people are abandoning the post in their personal lives, where there are other ways of exchanging information (does anyone send telegrams anymore, in this age of phones and SMS?). Soon, the Post may be a means of interfacing with old-fashioned state agencies (along with foreign embassies, themselves extensions of their states) and banks, all of who insist on date-marking and/or hard copies.
In countries like Japan and Singapore, the Post reinvented itself to compete with improved telecom services. They now offer a range of value-added services. This is the way for Lanka Post to go, if the grumpy old lady is to avoid being put on life-support in the coming years…
Chanuka Wattegama
Nalaka asks: Does anyone send telegrams anymore, in this age of phones and SMS?
Yes, they do, but perhaps only in Sri Lanka. The teleuse at BoP survey found number of participants who use this mode is 24% in Sri Lanka, while in other five countries it is single digit. (I give these figures by memory. Will correct if there is a minor mistake.)
I do not know the number of telegrams send per day, but the SLT service I mentioned in the post receives on average 12,000 requests, I am told. This indicates high usage.
Why? One possible explanation is all government departments still needs a written document to apply for leave. An SMS to boss will not do. There can be other reasons.
Nalaka Gunawardene
Chanuka,
Thanks for insight on telegrams. Which reinforces my point: “the Post may (remain) as a means of interfacing with old-fashioned state agencies…all of who insist on date-marking and/or hard copies.”
Did I hear someone say re-engineering government, or was I hallucinating? Looks like ICTA’s excessive hype is not matched by reality…
Rohan Samarajiva
Something I wrote two and a half years ago.
“It’s a strange question. It has always been Posts AND Telecom, even back in the bad old days when it was an inconsequential Ministry given to a junior/marginal Minister.
It has been one of the few constants in the ever-changing kaleidoscope of Ministry nomenclature.
But it is a choice. A choice, not for the public, but for the Minister. Is he going to preside over a sector that walks on two legs and contributes strongly to the economy and society; or is he going to preside over a dysfunctional family where one child is growing at an extraordinary pace and the other is not?
The growing child is not only growing, but it is eating the weakling’s lunch. He has a choice: let the status quo continue and see the weakling atrophy and die; or put the weakling on the regimen that caused the growth spurt in the healthy child.
Telecom or posts? “
Chanuka Wattegama
Current posts and telecom minister has ‘telecom’ only in his designation. Sri Lanka Telecom is managed as a company and Telecom Regulatory Commission is directly under the President.
Mahinda Herath
Heard what Finland is planning to do with Snail Mail?
Finland’s postal service is to begin opening household mail and sending scanned copies of letters by email to cut down on costs and pollution!
“Open household email?”, yes you read it correct!!!
Not even the most intimate love letters, payslips, overdue bills and other personal messages will be spared under the controversial scheme!
The service, aimed at cutting the number of postmen and reducing CO2 emissions in the sparsely-populated country, is being offered on a voluntary basis initially.
The full report is available through the following link.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/finland/7545709/Finland-postal-service-to-open-mail-and-send-scanned-email-copies.html
Donald Gaminitillake
Telegrams are not handled by the post office any more but by the sri lanka telecom PLC. Post office may be an agent
Donald Gaminitillake
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