It refers to RTI response revealing fourteen postal-services causing extra-ordinary heavy loss to postal-department with many of some services not being much used. A post-card worth just 50 paise costs rupees 7.18 to postal-department while not-so-much used and outdated Inland-Letter-Card priced at rupees 2.50 also costs department rupees 7.18. Significantly postal-department bears maximum loss on mailing registered newspapers at just 25 paise but costing the department rupees 10.59.
With 25-coins discontinued and 50-paise coins
virtually disappeared from circulation, minimum postal-tariff should
be rupee one especially at a time when even beggars refuse to accept
coins below rupee one.
In
Focus
Postal-department should discontinue
Inland-Letter-Cards, and should have only sponsored ?Meghdoot?
post-cards priced at rupee one with a part of subsidised cost coming
from those having advertisements on the sponsored post-cards. An
ordinary commoner may be using just one or two post-cards a month,
but the heavy subsidy-bill costs much more indirectly in terms of
fiscal-deficit or additional taxes on other commodities to meet heavy
postal-subsidy.
All inland postal-tariffs (other than post cards and
registered newspapers) including Speed Post tariffs should be fixed
in multiples of rupees five while foreign-mail tariffs in multiples
of rupees 20. Department of Post should approach Department of
Revenue with plea to treat all postal-services equally in regard of
levying service tax by abolishing service-tax on select
postal-services like Speed Post.
Air and Surface (sea) mail tariffs for foreign mail
should be fixed independently for equal tariff-rise for every 20 gms
additional weight-slab for air-mail tariffs abolishing present system
of levying air-surcharge on surface (sea) mail tariffs.
Likewise Surface (sea) mail tariffs for foreign mail
can be fixed for equal tariff-rise for every 20 gms additional
weight-slab. All this will enable postal-department issuing
commemorative stamps only in two denominations of rupees five and
twenty.
