Minister of communications Manoj Sinha on Thursday launched DARPAN (Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New India) aimed at realising financial inclusion of un-banked rural population. The IT modernisation project, having an outlay of Rs 1400 crore, intends to provide a low power technology solution to each branch postmaster (BPM) which will enable each of approximately 1.29 lakhs branch post offices (BOs) to improve service delivery, the department of post said in a release.  

Sinha said that 43,171 branch post offices have migrated under the DARPAN project with the aim of financial inclusion to rural population and it is targeted to complete the project by March 2018.

DARPAN offers core banking services. The core banking application covers following services: cash deposit in savings bank (SB) and recurring deposit (RD), withdrawal from savings bank, new account opening for SB and RD, higher value withdrawal, mini statement, Aadhaar seeding and daily transaction report.

"The application is used for the reimbursement of social security benefits to the needy across the country such as MNREGS, old age pension and DBT," the department said.

The project shall increase the rural reach of the department of posts and enable BOs to increase traffic of all financial remittances, savings accounts, rural postal life insurance, and cash certificates; improve mail operations processes by allowing for automated booking and delivery of accountable article; increase revenue using retail post business; provide third party applications; and make disbursements for social security schemes such as MGNREGS.

As part of IT modernisation project, the department of posts (DoP) has carried out business process reengineering across various functional areas and has created to-be processes that will enable it to achieve these objectives. As an achievement, department of posts has established 991 ATMs across the country, which are interoperable with other banks and the common people has directly benefited with the wide network of department of posts especially in rural areas.