Rabin Giri

Dharan, January 31

Transactions in the District Postal Saving Bank has increased significantly after the capital and assets collected by the bank were permitted for further investment.

This is the first time that transactions in the bank have come above the breakeven point during the 27 years of its operations, after the implementation of Postal Savings Investment Directory 2060 by the government lately. Prior to this, the district post offices were permitted only to collect capital only.

Over the past two months, total asset collection in the Sunsari post office has crossed Rs 1.15 million. It has to be noted that total collection by the office in this fiscal year till the month of Kartik was only Rs 0.29 million.

Gopal Katuwal, chief of district post office, said, "People were not interested when the post office was collecting assets only. The new policy formulated by the government has been successful in luring them."

The government started the concept of postal saving bank in BS 2033 to reach rural areas of the country. Since then, only asset collections from citizens were done and the collected amount was not used for investment or other purposes. The total amount collected used to be deposited in the current account of the government, which from BS 2059 was deposited in savings account of a local commercial bank and the government took responsibility for providing the necessary interest. The six per cent interest provided by the government has also been a major reason for the increase in business transaction.

Currently, the government has permitted 19 post offices to invest their collected assets. The Sunsari district post office is the first office to get permission. The Biratnagar regional post office has also started its work. However, the work has been delayed due to some technical difficulties. Chief Katuwal claimed that the achievement of the Sunsari office is very high in context of the success of postal savings bank. He added that this concept should be implemented in all the post offices to make them independent. "We have the responsibility of making the post office an individual force. Investment in the office is important," Katuwal added.

Since it is impossible to collect the return on investment from traditional stamp bill, the post

office has started to give out loans of upto Rs 10,000 to its employees.

This has facilitated 54 post office employees and the government is sure to meet its target within a year. The banking account project was organised, from December 23 to December 28, 2003, to advocate and promote the Postal Savings Bank in the area post office of Itahari.