Bihar and Punjab to jointly offer Mobile Money Order Service

PATNA: In a first, ten post offices each of Bihar and Punjab would offer mobile money order service (MMOS) from Wednesday when Union minister of state for information technology and communication Gurudas Kamat is scheduled to formally launch this service through videoconferencing from Delhi. The service would be provided in other parts of the country in phases.

In MMOS, money would be transferred within the country by using cellphone and via SMS. To avail of the service, the customer has to go to the designated post office and furnish mobile number, name, address and some other general information of the sender as well as recipient. Once the sender deposits the amount to be sent, an SMS containing a code is sent immediately by the postal department to the sender and receiver.

The designated recipient can collect the money from the nearest post office by furnishing the code sent by SMS and an identity proof. In one go, up to Rs 5,000 can be transferred through this service on payment of 5% of the amount as service charge to the postal department.

“To start with, the service would be available in Patna’s GPO and Bankipore, Patna City, Gulzarbagh, Kadamkuan, Patna secretariat, Danapur, Lohia Nagar, Mahendru and Rajendra Nagar post offices,” postal department’s marketing director Anil Kumar said and added the service would be launched in at least 50 more post offices of the state within a month.

The postal department is starting this service in collaboration with BSNL. “But this does not mean that the money order sender and receiver should possess BSNL sim cards. The service is available for all the cellphone users,” Kumar told TOI.

The service will save time and money. Also, it would be a boon for people not having a proper address for physical delivery of their money orders.

The apparent reason behind priority to Bihar and Punjab for the launch of MMOS is the fact that Punjab sends the highest number of money orders while Bihar receives the highest number of money orders in the country every year.