Over Rs 750 cr lying in inactive post office saving A/Cs: Government

The government today said around Rs 752 crore is lying as unclaimed deposits in more than 2.49 crore inactive savings accounts in post offices.

"Rs 752,44,57,414.03 is the amount lying in all inactive (silent) accounts as on March 31, 2011 in 2,49,59,446 accounts," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

West Bengal led the tally of unclaimed deposits with over Rs 107 crore lying in 20.16 lakh accounts, followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 105.87 crore in 62.72 lakh accounts) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 68.61 crore in 21.74 lakh accounts).

"The depositor of such account can activate the account at any time by transaction. Notices are issued every year to the account holder of such accounts who are not maintaining minimum balance. Special drives are launched to re-activate such accounts by issuing notices and giving information through electronic media," Sibal said.

Responding to another query, Sibal said 79,604 complaints for non-delivery of Registered Letters, 41,794 for Speed Post and 8,257 related to Parcels were received in the April-June, 2012 period.

"Of these, 73,077 complaints for registered post, 38,154 for Speed Post and 6,147 for Parcels were addressed. As on June 30, 2012, 6,527 complaint cases of Registered Letters, 3,640 cases of Speed Post and 2,110 cases of Parcels are pending," Sibal said.

The major reason for the pendency are involvement of more than one postal circle/state in processing the complaints, time taken in making detailed inquiry or investigation and non-submission of the required details by the complainant in some cases, he added.

The Minister added that during 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12, departmental action has been initiated in 1,287 cases against postal employees and penalties have been imposed in 1,157 cases for non-delivery and loss of articles etc.

In a separate reply, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said the Department of Posts' (DoP) volume as well as revenue from speed post has continuously increased over the years.

"The volume of Speed Post has increased from 21.14 crore in 2008-09 to 24.08 crore in 2009-10, 27.45 crore in 2010-11 to 39.19 crore in 2011-12," Pilot said.

Revenues from speed posts have also grown from Rs 515 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 614 crore in 2009-10, Rs 749 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 900 crore in 2011-12, he added.

Source : The Economic Times, August 22, 2012