India Post has announced that it will start collecting government stamp duty through 21 post offices in the Mumbai circle. The technology for evidencing stamp duty payment is provided by Pitney Bowes, a mail stream and document management company. The tamper-proof Pitney Bowes solution will help in secured evidencing of payments. Retrieval of information regarding date, time and purpose, value of the stamp duty will be possible in real-time, at the push of a button. Additionally, with this feature, India Post will be able to make available stamp paper of the exact amount in a single sheet, thereby reducing considerable expense and wastage of paper.
Under the arrangement, India Post will deploy Pitney Bowes digital meters at 21 post-offices under license and authorization of the State Revenue Department of the Government of Maharashtra, to provide secured revenue evidencing and stamp duty payment services to the general public. The Pitney Bowes solutions are already used widely in State Stamp offices, banks, financial institutions and other authorized bodies since almost 15 years, and today account for over 75 percent of the stamp duty transactions conducted in Maharashtra.
Said KM. Nanaiah, Managing Director, Pitney Bowes India, “This solution has been successfully used in various stamp-duty collection offices in the State. With its entry into the post office, it will now be effectively deployed to meet the needs of the common man, as the post office is the most accessible of all government offices.”
India Post of late has been consistently adding services to make the post office the pivotal point for the general public to access not only postal solutions, but also their other needs for Government services. Technology adoption is a part of its long-term strategy to enable multi-pronged consumer solutions.
