The Rajya Sabha on 4 December passed the Post Office Bill 2023. The bill seeks to replace the colonial-era Indian Post Office Act of 1898 that has governed India’s postal services for 125 years.
Salient features of the bill
- It aims to provide a simple legislative framework for post offices, facilitating their evolution into a network for citizen-centric services.
- It allows the central government, through notification, to empower officers to intercept, open, or detain items for reasons related to national security, public order, emergency, or contravention of prevailing laws.
- The central government is now empowered to intercept, open, or detain any item without the necessity of issuing a written order. The proposed legislation empowers the director general of postal services to frame regulations for providing services and fix charges.
- The bill exempts the government and officers from liability related to the loss, misdelivery, delay, or damage to postal articles. However, it introduces the provision that the central government may prescribe liability with regard to services by India Post under the rules.
- Postage stamps will exclusively be issued by the post office.
Causes for amendments
- The Indian Post Offices Act (1898) was primarily designed to govern working of post offices in the British India.
- The law mainly addressed regular services that primarily had to do with delivery of letters and similar functions.
- In the last nine and a half years, postal services, post offices, and postmen have not been limited to mere correspondence but have transformed into service-providing institutions.
- Over the years, post offices have become banks in a way. India Post Payment Bank, a major medium to convert the postal system into a banking system, has opened 3.5 crore accounts for women.
- The Post Office facilitates direct benefits transfer scheme to more than 30 million people.
