New Delhi, Oct. 18: The government today set in motion an initiative to computerise all the 26,000 post offices and connect them using an information technology backbone by 2007.

Minister of communications and information technology Dayanidhi Maran said the ministry has sought an additional grant of Rs 625 crore from the Planning Commission to implement the programme.

“I have written to the Prime Minister and the Planning Commission for additional financial support,” he said at the closing ceremony of the celebrations of 150 years of the department of posts.

The programme aims at widening the functional domain of post offices and seeks to reposition them as offering an array of services covering micro-credit, e-governance and other activities.

Earlier, the government had engaged the services of KPMG to conduct a ‘systems study’. An inter-ministerial group had also recommended overhauling and modernising the postal department.

The government today launched a postal service called ‘corporate e-post’. The service allows a person to compose a text message in a computer, access the e-post portal ? indiapost.nic.in ? and send the message like an e-mail. The message is printed at a post office close to a destination and sent in an envelope to the addressee through a postman like an ordinary delivery.

An A-4-size standard white envelope was also introduced, which has a tope opening and a bar code serration. Priced at Rs 5, the service is aimed at business-to-business commercial mails, a segment currently dominated by private courier companies.