INPUT OF POA ON THE DRAFT INSPECTION QUESTIONNAIRE

To

The Asstt Director General (PG),

Inspection Unit,

Dak Bhawan, Sansad Marg,

                        Postal Directorate, New Delhi-110001

No.     CHQ/POA/1-64/2019-20                                                  Dated 29.05.2019

Subject:  Review of Inspection Questionnaire for Branch Post Offices.

Respected Sir

Ref.      : Dte letter No. 16-3/2019-Inspn/2012-PE-II dated 20-5-2019.

  The department has issued the letter under reference to Postal Officer Association for providing inputs on the draft Inspection Questionnaire. After going through the whole text of the IQ, it is seen that the present form of questionnaire is an attempt to devolve responsibility on the inspecting staff which we always ready to shoulder. No doubt the IQ so drafted has touched each and every point but no care has been bestowed how inspecting staff will complete such a task within a day that too without any assistance.

2.           It is fact that with the invent of technology and Consequent upon introduction of new business branches, the Department of Posts has virtually changed  into a dynamic organization with projects like changing ambience of the offices, providing comfort to potential customers or visitors and various long lasting projects like Digitization of Records, Core Banking, Mail Optimization, Parcel optimization, e-commerce, Aadhaar Technology, Biometric Systems, cash less transaction through IPPB, CSI, DARPAN and what not. All these projects are being implemented with the support and incessant hard work of officers who are working at grass root level. It will not be wrong to say that the total responsibility for successful implementing the various innovative schemes has virtually devolved on us but the support that we require is not conferred resulting in frauds and other irregularities.

3.         Our feeder cadre feels over burdened from the beginning of his career as they have to do every type of work in his office may be of a peon in his own office, clerk & typist as it is a single man office who bears the brunt of all failings in the department being he be at the lowest rung in the administrative hierarchy.  No organization can last long with the service of its frustrated employees. In case department intend to get such a lengthy inspection carried out with the existing methodology of doing inspection, all existing Sub Divisions will require to be provided office staff and also posts of Mail Overseer need to be converted to Asstt. Inspector (PA cadre/System Manager) in order to carry out inspection in the given form in one day. Otherwise it will not be possible to attempt such a lengthy inspection by one officer in single day.

4.         If the conversion of Mail Overseer to Asstt. Inspector is not feasible; the Association hereby put forward the proposal of an Inspection Panel as an alternative. The monitoring system put in place must be carefully analyzed in relation to its objectives, and the norms and practices that are to be institutionalized to achieve the objectives, which can be congregated through a team of two to three persons instead of only two eyes. Another substitute to this proposition is bifurcation of inspection sectors i.e. scrutiny of administration. Technology, Insurance and Business development may be carried out by a member or a team while Audit/ Finance and Accounting Inspection along with Savings Bank enquiry may be done by another team or officer.

5.         Furthermore before implementation of given IQ, many changes in the system like integration between CBS, PLI & CSI application in DARPAN Devices is required, so that manual feeding of figures should be avoided & transactions performed in any of these applications are incorporated in BODA Report automatically. At present, BPM has to feed the figures of CBS & PLI manually to get these incorporated in BODA report. Further the figures of CBS & PLI are fed by the concerned account office through voucher posting which is not proper and prone to frauds. There should be integration between all the applications being used in the Department for effective incorporation & accountability into the government account. In such a case not much verification of account will be required.

6.         Also integration is required between DARPAN  Device & IPPB Device, so that the work done through IPPB Device is accounted for in DARPAN Device along with SAP, as presently IPPB figures are not incorporated in BODA Report generated through DARPAN Device, thereby there are different figures in BODA Report & Daily Account generated in the concerned account office in SAP.

7.         Non-reflection of figures in Daily Account in SAP on real time basis is a major hindrance in the smooth working of the Offices, as the figures are reflected in Daily Account even after a day or two, due to which many post offices are not able to tally their accounts on daily basis. In such an event real time verification will not be possible as desired in the report.

8.         Once this is done most of the reports could be generated one day advance without any change in the office premises through the system and in that way verification work could be possibly done within a day, otherwise two days will be required to attempt all the paras in real sense.  In the present scenario, it will not be possible to generate all the reports at the time of inspection. Moreover without integration of software, difference in the reports will be experienced.

9.         In this gleam, software may be designed or bought at par with the ones that are being operated in banks which amalgamates all the transactions done in CSI, POSA, POSB and IPPBs in one podium which can reduce the prospects of scams and futile exercises in BOs/DOs and during inspections.

It is therefore suggested that before revising the inspection questionnaire, action as suggested above may kindly be taken so that inspection may be carried out as per revised format. It will not be possible for inspecting staff to attempt all the paras with desired results until unless either two inspection days are allotted for Branch office inspection or support of clerical staff is provided to generate all the report for the dates, when inspection is to be carries out. Most important is integration of all the software for fetching the data automatically and there should not be any utility type option to feed the amount in manual mode.

                Thanking you

  

Yours Sincerely, 

(R.N.Yadav)

General Secretary