The Department of Posts has launched a scheme known as Five Star Villages. It bridges the gaps for generating public awareness and reach of postal products and services, mainly in interior villages.
The objective of Five Star Villages Scheme
Features of Five Star Villages Scheme
Under the Five Star Village scheme, all postal products and services are going to be made available and marketed and publicized at the village level. To cater all post office related needs of villagers, branch offices will function as one-stop shop.
Three components are Product and Service Availability, Product and Service Publicity and Product and Service Marketing.
The Scheme covered:
1. Savings Bank accounts, Recurrent Deposit Accounts, NSC / KVP certificates.
2. Sukanya Samridhi Accounts/ PPF Accounts
3. Funded Post Office Savings Account linked India Post Payments Bank Accounts.
4. Postal Life Insurance Policy/Rural Postal Life Insurance Policy.
5. Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana Account / Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana Account.
How the rating system is decided for the village?
From the above list, if a village attains universal coverage for four schemes then that village gets four-star status. If a village completes three schemes then that village will get three-star status and so on.
According to the Union Minister of State for Communications, Shri Sanjay Dhotre, the scheme is being launched on a pilot basis in Maharashtra. It will be implemented nation-wide, based on the experience of here.
Further, he said that the way to realize the goal of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat is through collaborative efforts that have been brought together under one umbrella, with the goal of providing financial inclusion.
Under the scheme, the whole state of Maharashtra is going to be covered. To start with, two rural districts/areas for every region are identified: Akola and Washim in Nagpur Region; Parbhani and Hingoli in Aurangabad Region; Solapur and Pandharpur in Pune Region; Kolhapur and Sangli in Goa Region; and Malegaon and Palghar in Navi Mumbai Region.
During the present fiscal year 2020-2021, a total of 50 villages in each district are going to be covered. Regional offices will identify the villages to be covered.
About Scheme implementation Team
– The scheme is going to be implemented by a team of five Gramin Dak Sevaks who are going to be assigned a village for the marketing of all products, savings, and insurance schemes of the Department of Posts.
– Branch Post Master of the concerned Branch Office will head the team. Personal watch on the progress of the team on day to day is going to be done by mail overseer.
– The teams are going to be led and monitored by concerned Divisional Head, Assistant Superintendents Posts, and Inspector Posts.
Campaign, Training, and Monitoring
Gramin Dak Sevaks team will conduct a door-to-door awareness campaign on all schemes. It’ll cover all eligible villagers. Publicity will be done on a wide-scale by displaying the information on the notice board of the Branch Office.
Prominent places of targeted villages like Panchayat Offices, schools, village dispensaries, bus depots, markets also will be used for advertising and pamphlets are going to be distributed. Small melas are also going to be organized, considering COVID-19 safety guidelines.
Training that is required and infrastructure that covers all schemes would be provided to all or any branch offices in identified villages. The progress and target of the scheme are going to be closely monitored at Circle, Regional and Divisional levels. Chief Post Master General will review the monthly progress.
