e-bill post

e-BillPost will be the latest offering of  the Department for providing better services to the customers using a mix of facilities harnessing the full potential of information technology through our network. We have 1,54,000 Post Offices all over India out of them 26,000 Post Offices are connected through network. These Post Offices are service centres for the citizens of the locality.  Post Offices collect bill payment across the counter for Service Providers like BSNL, Mobilink, and Bharti. Customers can present the bill and the amount in these service centres, Post Office issue a receipt and process the transaction for accounting and payment. The accounts are consolidated at a later date and paid to the Biller.

What are the Advantages ?

• There is no single agency today in the market with such a vast reach as the Posts to act on behalf of the citizen so that he can pay all his bills at one office-if not one counter.
• The Service Provider can get the payment settled from one source.
• Thanks to technology, Post Office is ready to take away this hassle of collection, processing and accounting on behalf of the Biller.
• India Post is ready to play the role of a Consolidator offering the citizen a hassle free stop and shop facility.

What will be the role of Post Ofifces ?

• The Department plans to take on this Consolidator role.
• The idea is to approach different service providers-private or government- assess their requirement and offer eBill Post  service to collect payment of the bills on behalf of the Service Provider.
• It is possible the customers of the Service Providers (SP) are located in one city or spread over across a number of city locations.
• Thus it should be possible for the citizen to pay his bills from anywhere either in the same city or in another city.

What are the features of e-BillPost ?

• e-BillPost is a product to collect and consolidate bill amount electronically.
• Collection in Post Offices
• Collection data updated in to a central server on-line
• Collection data accessible to the Biller at any time.
• Bills are collected in different locations, instruments-Cheque/Demand Draft- processed.
• Depositing payment in to SP’s account.
• The relevant transaction lists with full details are available on-line to the concerned Service Provider.
• The accounts are settled at one point as per the convenience of the Service Provider.

What is the proposed Infrastructure ?

• For creating the database (of the Service Provider), we are establishing the India Post Data Centre (IPDC) with the state-of-the-art technology with full security, redundancy in access, storage and connectivity.
• It will be accessible through Internet by any authorized point of sale (In this case the post offices). While this set up can take care of about 15 lakh transactions a day this can be enhanced to five times at short notice on demand.
• The customer can walk in to any of these identified post offices and present his bills and amount.
• Entering the paid information and issuing a receipt would handle the account.
• India Post Data Centre (IPDC) will be linked to the databases of the Service Providers so that the bill data is made available to the post offices.
• This will facilitate acceptance of payment based on the information shown from the database.
• It will be possible to accept the payment from the citizen even without a bill being presented from his side.
• If the customer desires to have a copy of the bill, we may take a print out and hand over on a fee.
• eBill Post also offers a citizen the facility of paying from home or office through on-line registration.
• With this facility, he can get the bills at his email box directly so that he can schedule his payment and make on-line payment sitting at home or office.

What are the Payment Modes ?

• Two modes of payment of bills, namely Cash and Cheque/Demand Draft.
• Depending up on the acceptance of the SP and citizen we will offer Credit Card.
• Arrangements for on-line authentication of credit card details would be through a secure payment portal.

Why e-Bill Post ?

• e-Bill Post is an eService for the benefit of the Service Provider and the Citizen.
• This service would make the payment activity convenient by offering the service under one roof.
• The Service Provider is relieved of the attendant difficulties in establishing a separate network to     collect his bill dues.
• In addition the bottom line is managed better with the collection details available on-line on a day-to-day basis.

Where is it available ?  

• Depending up on the customer distribution of a client (Service Provider) and customer preference, we will identify cities, towns and offices.
• At any given time the Post Office would be in a position to offer its convenient nodes for transacting business.
• The interests of Service Providers and their customers are fully taken care of.

Who can avail ?

• The service provider category includes almost the whole gamut of industry-
  • manufacturing,
  • service,
  • education
  • finance
  • telecommunication,
  • electricity,
  • water supply,
  • land revenue,
  • property tax,
  • income tax
  • Octroi
  • Police Fine etc  
• The frequency of payment could be fortnightly to annual.