Write a detailed note on various facilities offered by the Indian Postal Department.

Indian Post and Telegraph department provide a number of Postal Services across the country. For the smooth delivery of the services, the entire country is divided into 22 postal circles. Each circle has its own set of the head post office, sub-post office, and branch post office.

The different services provided by it explain below:

a. Financial facilities: Financial facilities are provided through the post office saving schemes such as Kisan Vikas Patra, public provident fund, national saving certificate along with other banking functions such as time deposit, saving account deposit, monthly deposit, money order facility and monthly income schemes.

b. Mail facilities: The Postal Services help in the transfer of parcels from one place to another, registration facility to provide security of the transferred good, and life insurance facility to provide insurance cover for all the risks in the course of transfer by post.

c. Miscellaneous activities: The miscellaneous activities include the following:

i- Greeting post consisting of different greeting cards for different occasions.

ii- Media post used by the Indian corporates to advertise their brand through postcards, telegram, aerogram, etc.

ii- Direct post which is used for direct advertising. It can be both addressed or unaddressed.

iv- The Postal Services have also collaborated with the Western Union Financial Services in the USA for international money transfer.

V- It has also collaborated with the Ministry of external affairs for facilitating passport application.

vi - The facility of speed post is available across the country and links with 97 major countries across the globe.