Ricoh India to digitize 130,000 rural Post offices

This project will first will be launched at three pilot circles in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. By March 2017, 1.30 lakh hand-held devices will be made available across rural branch offices.

Ricoh India is partnering with Department of Post for implementing and operating integrated Rural Hardware solution for around 1,30,000 post offices across India. Ricoh solution not only includes hand held devices with camera and bio metric facility but also includes set of solar panels at EDO level and network connectivity.

During the celebration of Good Governance Week, Minister of Communication and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad kicked off “Rural Information and Communication Technology” by handing over the first lot of “Solar Powered”, Bio Metric Enabled Hand Held Devices to Branch Post Masters of 3 pilot states. In order to ensure smooth functioning of the devices, Ricoh will also set up services centres across India.

As shared by the senior officials during the launch of the project, these mobile terminals will facilitate all postal and financial transactions in the rural branch offices, and upload this data to India Post data centre. This service will not only improve the delivery of services in the rural areas but will also be an important tool to improve the quality of service, provide more value added services and achieve “financial inclusion” of the un-banked rural population.

Under the project Ricoh India will supply, install and maintain services of hardware, peripheral devices and operating system for “Rural Information & Communication Technology (ICT) – Hardware (RH)” Solution.This project will first will be launched at three pilot circles in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. By March 2017, 1.30 lakh hand-held devices will be made available across rural branch offices.

Booking and delivery of Speed Post, registered mail, money orders, sale of stamps and postal stationary will be done through these devices and paper receipts will be generated instantly. The scope of work includes supply of mobile computing devices and peripherals, installation of solar UPS, connectivity to access the application by service providers along with maintenance for five years.   See more..