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COMMON SERVICE CENTRES (CSCs) IN POST OFFICES IS FOR OUTSOURCING THE POST OFFICE WORK TO A COMPANY CALLED CSC.

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      When the whole country is fighting the COVID -19 pandemic, the Department of Posts declared its decision to open counters of CSC in selected Post offices as a pilot project from 4th May 2020. 

WHAT IS CSC?

Common Service Centre (CSC) is a Public Private Partnership Model Company established by Government of India under Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology ( MeiTY) in 2006 to introduce e-governance in a massive scale. This company offers about more than 34 various citizen centric services of states/ central Governments , Public and  Private companies , Educational Institutions , Banking , Insurance , Agriculture , Recruitments , Income Tax returns filing etc  to the public. 

What are the Postal Services?

 CSC IS GOING TO OFFER TO THE PUBLIC.

It seems that the Department of Posts has already signed a Memo of Understanding ( MoU) with CSC to enable them to provide following Postal Services through the counters of CSC.

1.         Booking of Registered and Speed post articles.

2.        Booking of eMO.

3.        Acceptance of deposits in Post office Savings Bank ( POSB) accounts.

4.        Acceptance of Postal Life Insurance and Rural Postal Life Insurance

           (PLI & RPLI) proposals and also premiums.

  In departmental Post offices a separate counter or room  will be opened by CSC in the space provided by Department of Posts. The counter will be manned a person selected for that purpose, on commission basis (willing GDS or outsourced persons). In Branch Post offices, the BPM himself will do the CSC work on commission basis. The entire revenue earned by CSC will be divided between DOP and CSC on revenue sharing basis. Account would be settled on a day to day, real time basis through a wallet. CSC will integrate the wallet (synchronise) with Core System Integrator (CSI) of Department of Posts.

HOW IT WILL AFFECT THE JOB SECURITY OF POST OFFICE STAFF ?

CSC will function as a parallel Post office inside the Post office building itself. For earning more revenue by CSCs (and commission to the person manning the CSC) , there is every possibility of diverting the public from Post office counters to CSC counters. Slowly but surely, more and more post office counter work will be transferred to CSC.

        Already, Government has established a separate Banking Company (IPPB) under the Department of Posts and the same is now functioning inside the Post office buildings. Government may not continue with both the Post office Savings Bank and IPPB for long. Once IPPB is converted into a full fledged Bank, POSB is likely to be withdrawn. Proposal for creation of a separate Insurance Company and a Parcel Company is already pending. Thus almost all the work performed by Post office staff like POSB, PLI/RPLI , Booking of Registered / Speed post articles , booking of eMO etc will be transferred to various companies. Postal employees will be compelled to perform as Business Correspondences of these companies. For the services rendered by the Post office staff to these companies, Department of Posts may get compensation (user fee). Once the companies start appointing their own staff (either permanent or contract staff) , the job security of the employees working in Department of Posts will be in danger.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST OUTSOURCING AND

 CORPORATISATION IS TO BE INTENSIFIED.

The agenda of the Government is clear. It is part of their policy of outsourcing, Corporatisation and Privatisation. NFPE has opposed this neoliberal policy agenda of the Government and conducted many struggles. We have to start vigorous campaign and intensify our struggle against the neoliberal policies. Coming days are very crucial