Tk 500m automation plan for BPO to provide quick services from July

The government has finalised a Tk 500-million automation plan for Bangladesh Post Office (BPO), aiming to provide quick services to the people, a BPO high official said. "Necessary formalities regarding the proposed automation have almost been completed under public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement .Hopefully, the automation process will kick off July next", a top official of BPO told the FE. The official said a country based ITC Company has undertaken the responsibilities of the automation plan. Initially, 123 post offices out of 10,000 mainly in district level across the country, would be turned into fully computerised from where all kinds of transactions and other office activities would be done with IT-based modern facilities, the official said. Under automation scheme, initially ATM booths, cash card and Point of Sale (POS) machine will be introduced, the official said. The official said the number of 600 ATM booths specially at post office premises will be set up from where the people can do transactions that banks' ATM booths provide to the customers. The people whose cash will be available in the post offices will also get opportunities for selling and buying products using through mobile set named postal payment service and the postal payment services will be launched by June, the official said. The official also said a good number of people in the country every day are sending parcel through BPO to the foreign countries as well as domestic service; and BPO parcel services has earned much goodwill.