The Union Minister of State for Communication, Sanjay Dhotre, has launched the five star village postal scheme. The scheme ensures the universal coverage of flagship postal schemes. The scheme has been launched for rural areas of Uttarakhand. Apart from that, the minister also distributed Sukanya Samridhi Yojana passbooks, checkbooks, ATM Cards and saving bank passbooks to the beneficiaries of senior citizens welfare fund schemes.
What Should I know for My UPSC Exams?
Background
The Department of Posts under the Ministry of Communications has earlier launched a the Five Star Villages scheme. This scheme seeks to bridge the gaps between the public awareness and reach of postal products and services in the remote villages.
Five Star Villages scheme
- The scheme has been launched with an objective of ensuring the universal coverage of the postal schemes in rural areas of the country.
- It has three components namely:
- Product & Service Availability,
- Product & Service Publicity and
- Product & Service Marketing.
- The branch offices of the post will function as one-stop shops. This will cater all the post office related needs of the villagers.
Schemes covered
The five star villages scheme covers the schemes called Savings Bank accounts, Sukanya Samridhi Accounts, Recurring Deposit Accounts, India Post Payments Bank Accounts, Rural Postal Life Insurance Policy, Postal Life Insurance Policy, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana Account and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana Account.
How this rating is provided?
Under the scheme, one Scheme equals the one star of rating. So, when a village attains universal coverage for four schemes out of the covered scheme, then the village gets four-star status. This was, rating is provided based on how many schemes has been successfully implemented by providing the universal coverage.