The BJP-led government has decided to use the e-commerce platform to facilitate online delivery of water from the Ganga, or Gangajal, from this year onwards. People can order a bottle of holy water through the website of India Post.
According a senior India Post official, the plan is to set up Ganga water packaging units in different cities situated at the banks of the river. “The government is in talks with some major players for packaging as the postal department would only take the orders. After the Gangajal is packed in bottles of different sizes, the it will be sent to post offices and from there it would delivered by postmen as consignment.”
According to sources, the minimum size of the bottle for which an order can be placed is 90 ml, while the maximum size is 650 ml and as with any consignment , this too can be tracked online.
Explaining the delivery mechanism of Gangajal, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “I used to get several requests that with vast network of post can we get Gangajal. I have directed the postal department to utilise e-commerce platform and make arrangement for providing pure Gangajal from Haridwar, Rishikesh to people. They have assured that they will take pro-active step to make this possible.”
Though the focus would be on delivery of Ganga water from Haridwar and Rishikesh, sources said the proposal is to deliver packaged Ganga water from some other destinations as well., including Varanasi, Allahabad, Bhagalpur, Patna, etc.
“If a postman can deliver mobile phones, sarees and jewellery then why not Gangajal,” said Prasad during a press meet organised to spell out the achievements of his Ministry in the last two years.
Around 80 per cent of India’s 1.2 billion population is Hindu, but the country is also home to large number of Muslims, Christians and Buddhists. India Post, the state-run postal network, has in the past two years tied up with some 400 e-commerce companies, including Amazon and Indian giant Flipkart, to deliver a diverse range of goods. The tie-ups have reaped rich results, with parcel deliveries increasing 15-fold to 75,000 daily deliveries since 2014.
While listing the achievements of the postal department, Prasad said: “Speed Post revenue of the department has increased from Rs 1,372 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,600 crore in 2015-16 and cash on delivery collections for e-commerce parcels has increased from Rs 100 crore to Rs 1300 crore in the same period.
“Today, core banking network of post offices is more than that of State Bank of India. SBI has 1,666 core banking branches while 22,137 post offices now have core banking facility,” Prasad stated. He said by the end of this year all postmen in urban centres will be given smartphones, and handheld devices will be provided to postmen in 1.3 lakh rural post offices by March 2017.
“A total of 4,000 handheld devices have already been given. It will help in financial inclusion. It will be a moving ATM. Postmen of urban centres will get smartphones by end of this year,” Prasad said.