Dhanbad, June 28: The efforts of the postal department to initiate business development of the sector a year back by diversification of core activities and reinvention has paid off with the department yielding a revenue of Rs 450 lakh in 2004-2005 for Jharkhand circle.

The only exception was the strategic post. This plan was introduced to carry parcels weighing more than 50 kg to any destination, which failed to take off.

?We had invited tenders from truckers association all over the state for various routes to launch the service, but the response is not encouraging. In a recently concluded offer for Dhanbad postal division none of the transporters showed interest in any route, revealed Lal Dhari Ram, senior superintendent of post at Dhanbad.

Dhanbad division was ranked second only to Ranchi division with revenue generated from business development standing at Rs 103 lakh.

The postal department is however facing its greatest challenge from the private courier agencies that have gradually grabbed the market share of the department of post in delivering mails.

As per new business strategy, the introduction of business post was aimed at providing a complete mail solution for bulk mailers.

The facility ruled out the need to buy and affix stamps as men from the department collected the mails from the doorstep of the customer. This plan helped Dhanbad division do a business of Rs 4.31 lakh.

Another plan kicked-off by the postal department is media post. The main idea behind it was to earn by lett ing corporate houses and government departments advertise on postal stationeries, mail vans and letterboxes. This plan was not fruitful and recorded a business of 47 thousand as against the target of Rs 7 lakh.

Retail post was the next in line. It was introduced to enable post offices to work as retail outlet for any product like sale of forms, collection of telephone bills, electricity bills, municipal taxes and school fee.

It fetched Dhanbad division Rs 19.59 lakh for the year 2004-05.

A tie-up with Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) under total examination cum admission mail solutions for educational and recruiting units (TEAMS) emerged as a trend setter in business development efforts.

The last of the plans was the introduction of speed post passport service which was started to facilitate dispatch of application to regional passport office through post offices, which did a business of Rs. 0.79 lakh.