Government loses Rs 7 per post card, Rs 5 per inland letter

Department of Posts incurred a loss of Rs 7.03 per post card and Rs 4.93 on every inland letter in 2013-14, Parliament was informed today.

"Losses are being incurred on every post card and inland letter. As per the cost allocated for the year 2013-14, loss on post card and inland letter was Rs 7.03 and Rs 4.93, respectively," Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Citing figures, the minister added that the traffic of inland letters and letters has increased after two years of decline.

In 2011-12 and 2012-13, there was a 3.3% and 5.2% fall in traffic of inland letters, while the same grew 1.1% to Rs 87.45 crore in 2013-14.

Similarly, for letters, the traffic had declined 6.3% in 2011-12 and 2.7% in 2012-13. The traffic grew 3.1% to Rs 208.72 crore in 2013-14.

Speed post traffic grew 14.8% in 2011-12, fell 17.8% in 2012-13 and came back to growth in 2013-14 with 7.8% rise in traffic to Rs 39.87 crore.

In a separate query, the minister said the department has printed 18.16 lakh stamps under the personalised postage stamp scheme 'My Stamp' and has earned a total revenue of Rs 4.57 crore.

The highest revenue was garnered from Tamil Nadu (Rs 54.20 lakh), while no revenue came from Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland under the scheme.