Department of Posts
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A typical Indian Post office in Tamil Nadu
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Native name
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भारतीय डाक |
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| Agency of the Government of India | |
| Industry | Postal services, courier |
| Founded | 1 April 1854 |
| Headquarters | Sansad Marg, New Delhi |
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Key people
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Anant Narayan Nanda, IPoS, Secretary Posts |
| Services | Letter post, parcel service, EMS, delivery, freight forwarding, third-party logistics, deposit account |
| Revenue |
 ₹129.39 billion (US$2.0 billion) (2016) |
 ₹-60.07 billion (US$−940 million) (2016) |
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Number of employees
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448,840 (As of 31 March 2016[update]) |
| Website | www |
The Department of Posts (DoP), trading as India Post, is a government-operated postal system in India. Generally referred to within India as "the post office", it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. The postal service is under the Department of Posts, which is part of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Government of India.
As of 31 March 2015[update], the Indian Postal Service had 154,939 post offices, of which 139,222 (89.86%) were in rural areas and 15,826 (10.14%) in urban areas. It had 25,560 departmental Post Offices and 129,379 Gramin Dak Sevak, Branch Post Offices. On average, a post office serves an area of 21.22 square kilometres (8.19 sq mi) and a population of 8,054. Because of its reach and presence in remote areas, the Indian postal service is also involved in other services such as small-savings banking and financial services.
The country has been divided into 22 postal circles, each circle headed by a Chief Postmaster General. Each circle is divided into regions, headed by a Postmaster General and comprising field units known as Divisions. These divisions are further divided into subdivisions. In addition to the 22 circles, there is a base circle to provide postal services to the Armed Forces of India headed by a Director General. The highest post office in the world is in Hikkim, Himachal Pradesh operated by India Post at a height of 15,500 ft (4,700 m).
The British Raj was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown. By 1861, there were 889 post offices handling nearly 43 million letters and over 4.5 million newspapers annually. The first superintendent of the post office was appointed in 1870 and based in Allahabad and in 1876, British India became the first non-founding member of the General Postal Union.
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Wikipedia