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Union leader delivers reform message to rescue loss-making Sri Lanka Post
The Postal Department, now functioning under the brand name Sri Lanka Post, is running at a big loss of Rs 6,000 million and successive governments are to blame, says a trade union leader
Chintaka Bandara
The Joint Postal Trade Union Alliance Convenor Chintaka Bandara said Sri Lanka lags far behind times compared to the giant strides other countries have taken to develop their postal services.
Saddled with a staff of 26,781 and 653 post offices islandwide, it is high time the department thought of increasing revenue, diversifying its activities and resorting to advanced technology to address the issues confronting this ailing giant, the union leader said.
Before 1972, the postal service was a viable income generating venture facilitated by postal banking, telecommunications and, not to forget, the then Radio Ceylon, which was also part of the Sri Lanka postal service. “Regrettably, these gradually moved away from us and a drastic revenue reduction was inevitable,” said Mr. Bandara, who works as the Borella Post Master.
Holding on to outdated systems would further reduce income, the union leader said. Instead, the Postal Department should adopt state-of the-art technology and service diversification to to increase its revenue and to make the system efficient, he said.
“Shockingly we are at the lowest level in relation to technology. When India advanced in postal technology, the excess staff in that country’s postal services was absorbed into the Indian Postal Insurance which is doing extremely well today. This has even increased revenue,” he said. Mr.Bandara said that although the entry of private courier companies have lightened the workload of the department, Sri Lanka Post’s wide network and link system are our plus points which were denied to others. “Certainly, they are ahead of us in technology, but they lag behind in networking,” he said.
“E-commerce or ecom is all old hat in international postal services but still a non-entity over here. Postal services of other countries are heavily engaged in ecom and a bulk of their revenue comes from it,” Mr. Bandara said.
Having the Postal Department’s own bank instead of operating money transactions through other banks is another proposal the union leader makes to increase revenue.
“We have 653 post offices, 3,410 sub post offices, 101 rural agency post offices and four estate post offices throughout the country. But we do nothing to bring out the best in them. So why not make these agency’s economically viable ?” he asked.
But to do all this, the union leader says, the department needs wholesome human capital devoid of party politics and a total commitment towards the country’s wellbeing. “Today the postal service employees are utterly demoralised like the police service. Their promotions don’t come in time. Workers are disgruntled. The irregularities that came following the public sector reforms adopted by the then government in 2006 impacted the postal services as well,” he said.
“We are a closed service and are bound to work round the clock unlike those in the open service. We have a right to ask for higher salaries and more perks and privileges. Yet, to reach the officer grade, a postal employee has to complete 42 years in service. This often happens, when the employee is laid to rest,” the union leader said.