Kathmandu, June 30: Minister for Information and Communications Dr Bikram Timilsina has said that the postal service has been revived as an effective means of delivering government services to citizens’ homes, making it modern, reliable, and citizen-friendly.
“The government has successfully implemented a campaign to develop the traditional postal service into a tech-friendly and specialized ‘government courier service’ that delivers government services right to citizens’ doorsteps,” he said while addressing the ‘High-Level Dialogue on the Modernization of Postal Services’ organized by the Department of Postal Service here today.
The Communications Minister said that the government is moving forward in a planned way to revive the postal service, and its positive results have also started to be seen.
He said, “Even though the form of postal services has changed with the expansion of the information technology sector, its necessity and importance still remain. Digitization has not reduced the significance of postal services. On the contrary, there is a growing need to modernize them in a timely manner and expand the services.”
Minister Dr. Timilsina pointed out that to increase the effectiveness of government services, cooperation between the public and private sectors is necessary, noting that the government can’t do all the work alone and that partnership with the private sector and effective coordination among government bodies are essential.
Similarly, he observed that improving the weakening institutional image of the postal service requires the employees’ willingness, innovative thinking, and service-oriented work style.
He mentioned that the provision of delivering government documents like passports and driving licenses directly to citizens’ homes has brought significant changes in service delivery, saying that it saves citizens’ time, costs, and hassle, and also increases trust in government services.
Even from a security perspective, Minister of Communications Dr. Timilsina said that the government postal service is reliable.
Mentioning that the government is moving forward to make public service delivery more effective by maximizing the use of limited resources, he informed that under the government’s 100-day agenda for administrative reforms, significant progress has been made in the work of the Ministry of Communications and its subordinate bodies.
Secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communications, Laxmi Kumari Basnet, said that even in the digital age, there is still a need for postal services and added that the department has so far made agreements with seven government agencies to provide government services right at citizens’ doorsteps.
“Passports, driver’s licenses, educational certificates, health check-up reports, and other government documents are now being delivered directly to homes. In the coming days, the ministry is working to make this service even more effective, professional, and citizen-friendly,” said Secretary Basnet.
Director General of the Department of Postal Service, Manmaya Bhattarai Pangeni, said that a campaign has been launched to make the postal service more effective by adopting international best practices.
Stating that citizen-focused service delivery is being prioritized through the ‘Mail in Every Home, Mail in Every Mind’ campaign, she shared that after people started receiving government documents at home, positive feedback from citizens has been coming in.
According to her, the progress of the ‘Government Courier Service’ run through the department with the goal of delivering government services right to citizens’ doorsteps has been encouraging.
As the department has become more tech-friendly and various institutional reform programmes have been implemented, passports, driving licenses, health materials, educational certificates, and other government documents have started being delivered safely to citizens’ homes.
After the formation of the new government, point number 27 of the 100-day roadmap for governance reforms that was made public mentioned that arrangements will be made to deliver government documents like passports, citizenship copies, and driving licenses to people’s homes.
Similarly, according to the government’s annual policy and budget statement for the upcoming fiscal year, a campaign has also been launched to gradually transform post offices across the country into ‘Smart Post Offices’.
According to the department, the government is implementing a policy to transform the traditional postal service, which is limited to delivering letters, into a modern ‘Government Courier Service’.
The department has stated that the scope of services providing passports, driver’s licenses, educational certificates, health materials, and other government documents right at citizens’ doorsteps has been gradually expanding. #nepal #rss
