Home Economy Private-public alliance takes Hutch to the masses

Private-public alliance takes Hutch to the masses

By IANS

Lucknow : In a first of its kind arrangement, leading telecom operator Hutch and the Department of Posts Wednesday launched a public-private partnership to make all Hutch services available through post offices across Uttar Pradesh.

Chief Post Master General of Uttar Pradesh Neelam Shrivastava and Hutch Uttar Pradesh West CEO Rohit Adya launched the initiative at a joint press conference.

Speaking at the launch, Shrivastava said, “It is the sheer convenience of making available mobile connections to every nook and corner of Uttar Pradesh that will help citizens stay connected, be it for business or personal reasons.”

Hutch will be utilising the wide network of post offices across Uttar Pradesh for customer service, sale of prepaid and postpaid connections as well as prepaid recharges and postpaid delivery & collections.

Hutch will also use space in select post offices for commissioning of its self- service kiosks (SSK) and PCO units. While urban post offices will provide dedicated counters for Hutch services, rural post offices will have shared counters for providing both postal and Hutch services. The list of post offices supporting Hutch services will be circulated and updated periodically to all customers.

Adya described the initiative as “a matter of honour for the company to join hands with one of India’s largest public networks to reach out to the people even in the remotest corners of India’s most populous state.”

Hutch also proposes to offer services such as faulty SIM replacement, PIN/PUK numbers for blocked SIMs, postpaid bill payment collections and information about existing and new products through post offices. All new connections will be sold by the post offices only after collecting and verifying the necessary documents as per the rules stated by the Department of Telecommunications.