Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology has moved forward to reduce fees on postal services in a bid to compete with the courier services, officials said.
They said the Postal Department had increased fees of its various services in 2018 and subsequently, the cost of the services went above those courier services run by private operators. As a result, people opted to take services from couriers instead of postal department.
Considering this, the Ministry has moved to revise the charges of at least 30 services of the Postal Department.
It has proposed to cut up to 75 per cent of the postage charges, officials said.
A Finance Ministry official told The New Nation yesterday that they are scrutinising the proposal. The Ministry would make a decision in this regard soon.
According to the proposal, a letter weighing 100 gram would be charged Tk 5 from Tk 15 with 66 per cent reduction in fee. Besides, the Digital Commerce fee will go down to Tk 20 from Tk 23 (weighing 1 kg). The fee for ‘Book Pocket Service’ however is ‘not to be changed’.
Currently, the postal department is slapping Tk 5 charge for a registered letter, which will come down to Tk 3, and the GEP charge to Tk 5 from Tk 15 while the AD charge of Tk 5 will remain unchanged, according to the proposal.
The Ministry also proposed to introduce a new service ‘City Post’ under which people will be able to send their 200-gram documents within the city at the cost of Tk 7. It now cost Tk 50 for sending 1 kg parcel by using postal service. The Ministry has proposed to cut it to Tk 15.
Besides, the fee for sending per kg parcel (ceiling up to 20 kg) which is Tk 50 will come down to Tk 15, according to the proposal. In this case, the charges would go down 70 per cent.
The Postal Department is providing a service naming Digital Commerce Parcel. Under the service, people have to pay Tk 23 to send per kg parcel. But the charge has been proposed to come down to Tk 20.
The Ministry has also proposed to introduce a new service ‘Ad Mail’ in which one have to pay Tk 50 for per 100-addressed mail.
The Ministry has also proposed to reduce money order charges and commissions and increase the limit of money order.
It also proposed to reduce the charge of Post card to Tk 2 from existing Tk 4. Besides, sending invitation card up to 50 would take Tk 5 from Tk 6 in city areas and it would cost Tk 7 for rural areas.
When asked, Md. Afzal Hossain, Secretary of the Posts and Telecommunications Division said existing fees on postal services are higher than the Courier services. So, we are going to revise the fees to a ‘logical’ level considering realities on the ground.
“The charges for domestic postal services would be made downward for public good. But the charges of international services would remain same,” he added.
