The postman will now bring your Amazon orders a tad faster. he will 
beat your doorstep the same day that you place the order From April 6. The Karnataka Postal Circle has collaborated with the e-commerce major to deliver shipments to all Bengaluru PIN codes. They’ll be handed over to the Amazon booking centre at 10am and delivered to respective addresses during nodal delivery centres by 8pm.
Union minister for communication and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated the service on Thursday. At present, the postal circle is booking about one lakh e-commerce consignments at an average value of Rs 2 crore a month. To cater to growing needs, a nodal e-commerce business centre with a built-up area of 5,000 sqft was inaugurated by the minister via video conference. The facility in Yelahanka, 17 km en route to KIA, enjoys good air connectivity and is accessible to e-tailers’s warehouses.
“With the Yelahanka facility and a few more expected in the current financial year, the consignments will grow to an assured volume of 5 lakh at an average value of Rs 10 crore per month,” said MS Ramanujan, chief postmaster general, Karnataka Circle.
Prasad said the postal department should come up with out-of-the-box ideas to align itself with new avenues like e-commerce businesses. “The postman is still a respected figure; people trust him. It’s time you came up with innovative ideas,” he added.
Need dedicated aircraft: Ramanujam said the department should be provided with dedicated aircraft to meet the burgeoning demand of e-commerce shipments. “Currently, we are dependent on private airlines and Air India, which make it a point to offload our cargo whenever they get shipment orders of premium cargo. We are facing this problem in Kolkata, which is a major gateway to northeastern states,” he added.
ATMs in post offices:
If you have a post office account and are fed up with the prolonged wait for cash transactions, here is some good news. All you need to do is walk into the ATM set up at your post office. In a first, the postal department has started commissioning ATMs at its branches. The first one was inaugurated at the Bengaluru GPO by minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Thursday. The 336 post offices under the Karnataka Circle have been allotted 76 ATMs so far. By December 31, 2015, all machines will be functional. Debit cards will be issued instantly and free of cost.
Other facilities: The Circle Processing Centre, a single entity for back office documentation work at the post office, was among the facilities inaugurated on Thursday. Post Shoppe, a shelf for aesthetic and utility products for customers was also launched. A special commemorative cover — Golden Chariot: an unforgettable journey with myriad experiences — was also released on the occasion.
