Subhash Chandra Agrawal
Postal tariff to mail an ordinary unreliable mail-article (local) say weighing 500 gms will be Rs 125 (service-tax exempted). But same local mail-article if mailed through fast and assured delivery of Speed Post will cost just Rs 34 (inclusive of rupees four as service-tax)! Such irrationality in mail-tariffs costs heavily to the postal department with premium postal-services like Speed Post not giving desired profits which may compensate heavy losses on other essential postal services like post-cards, inland-letter-cards, registered newspapers etc.
Moreover presently postal department has different mail-tariffs for local and non-local mail articles sent through premium postal-services like Speed Post, while it is inform for ordinary postal-services. Tariffs for Speed Post and other premium postal services should also be common for local and non-local mail articles. Also premium postal-services have additive of service-tax, while no service-tax is added on ordinary postal-services. Imposing service-tax on selected premium postal-services is like putting revenue from one pocket to another that too with a bias between premium and ordinary postal-services. Department of Posts can revise ordinary mail-tariff to Rs 10 per 50 gms or part instead of present Rs 5 per 20 gms or part. Likewise Speed Post tariff can be fixed commonly at Rs 20 or 25 (inclusive of service tax if imposable) per 50 gms or part uniformly for local and non-local mail-articles.
It is time to abolish loss-making and unpopular inland-letter cards. However post-card should be retained but priced at Re 1 only in meghdoot category where an appreciable part of revenue-loss is offset through sponsors sponsoring meghdoot post-cards with their advertisements printed on remaining back side with address-block. All other types of post-cards (business or printed) can be priced at Rs 10. Postal department should stop delivering post-cards with rubber-stamps (printed category) to Akashvani where many regular listeners send their choices of film-songs by putting fixed rubber-stamps on ordinary post-cards which must be covered under printed category of post-cards.
