Not-so-digital India: Why are post offices across Pune refusing digital payment and only accepting cash?

The Pune Postal Region comprises four districts: Pune, Satara, Ahmednagar and Solapur. Altogether they have 2,183 branch post offices, 486 sub post offices and 10 head post offices. The Pune City, which comprises Pune City East and Pune City West Division, itself has 117 sub post offices, three head post offices and 38 branch post offices.

Out of this huge number of post offices that exist, according to information given by Postmaster General, Pune Region, Ramchandra Jayabhaye, at present just nine tablets have been made available at head post offices of Ahmednagar, Baramati, Karad, Pandharpur, Satara, Shrirampur, Solapur and at Pune City Head Post Office and Pune Head Post Office (GPO) to carry out digital transactions.

However, when Express visited the Pune City Head Post Office in Budhwar Peth and the GPO near Pune railway station, only the cash mode of transaction was available and acceptable. There were no tablets visible anywhere and no one seemed to know they existed. Consequently, customers were a harried lot.

When the facility was rolled out in 2022, India Post was using static QR technology for transaction, but since it was outdated and came with frequent glitches, it was decided to switch from static to dynamic QR code technology. Except that it’s not working either. (Express Photo by Arul Horizon)

Varaj P, a regular customer at the GPO near the railway station, uses their services to send medicines to his father who works in Hong Kong every two months. Varaj says, “Earlier I used to ask for UPI payment option as it is more convenient. But I was always asked to pay in cash, now I have given up and started carrying cash”.

About the lack of availability of digital payments on a large scale, Jayabhaye said, “We are planning to roll out payments via dynamic QR code in different phases. This is only the first phase in which we have made one tablet each available at just the head post offices in the district. Its implementation is going on in full swing. With more work on the technology and more investment, we will be able to roll it out across the region”.

However, digital payments haven’t been completely non-existent in the history of India Post. Official sources at the post office informed The Indian Express that digital payments were started in February 2022 but last December it was decided to discontinue the facility across the country.

When the facility was rolled out in 2022, India Post was using static QR technology for transaction, but since it was outdated and came with frequent glitches, it was decided to switch from static to dynamic QR code technology. Except that it’s not working either.

An official working for India Post in Pune, on condition of anonymity, said, “Right now due to lack of UPI payment facility, we are not able to provide digital payment services to our customers. We also hope that this mode will be restored soon. When we had earlier rolled out payments via static QR it used to have a lot of glitches that resulted in payment failure or double payments. A single transaction used to take around 15 minutes and if there was an issue of double payment it would take at least 15 days to refund the money to the customer. So customers were very frustrated with the old technology”.

Sangita Bhagwat, a customer who sent a courier to Germany from the Tol Hospital, Navsahyadri post office, said, “They did not have a digital payment option at the post office. We carried cash because we had predicted this situation beforehand so we could send the parcel without any delay.”

Akshay Thorat, who availed the facility of Speed Post at Shivaji Nagar Head Post Office, said, “I have always paid in cash. Digital would have definitely been better, but it’s not there.”

At the Model Colony post office a customer was turned away when she took out her mobile phone to pay for stamps worth Rs 50 through the UPI app with the response that this post office takes only cash for the smallest to the biggest service.

Prachi, a customer at the GPO, whose total billing amount for a Speed Post including stamps was Rs 41, said, “So many customers were with me who had to go out and talk to vendors on the street and ask for some change. But here no UPI, nor card payments are accepted, only cash. Is this digital India?” she said.