HYDERABAD: Devotees of Lord Balaji could now buy special darshan tickets at any post office in the country. The facility, which was earlier available only to the people of Telangana and AP, would now be extended to the entire country.
This was disclosed by B V Sudhakar, Chief Postmaster General, AP circle, after inaugurating the first India Post ATM in Telangana at the Hyderabad GPO on Monday.
“We have received permission from the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams today (on Tuesday) to sell darshan tickets at all post offices in the country. The software that we developed will be shared with other states, in order to make this possible. Earlier, there was a rule that each and every person from a family should come to the post office to book tickets. Now that rule has been scrapped, making it possible for one person in a family to come and book tickets for the entire family,” he explained.On ATM services, Sudhakar said, “We want to improve the quality of our services by using the latest technologies. Through these ATMs, people can withdraw cash from their service accounts and also avail of other banking facilities. We have plans to extend our services to all the 95 head post offices in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.”
Telangana would have 36 ATMs, a couple of which would be established in the next 10 days at Secunderabad and Jubilee Hills head post offices.
The units would provide the same services as normal ATMs for savings account holders in post offices. The postal department is also planning to link them with commercial banks soon. A maximum of Rs 10,000 could be withdrawn at a time, and Rs 25,000 on a single day.
The ATMs are integrated under the core banking solutions (CBS). All the head post offices in the state are already on the CBS platform and about 2,438 sub post offices would be upgraded to the CBS by March 2016. The CBS is a centrally integrated system, which allows customers to transact business at any post office in the country. There are 16,053 post offices in Telangana and AP, out which 14,765 are in rural areas.