In the times of electronic gadgets and electronic mails being delivered at the click of a mouse, the postal department is struggling hard to keep up. There are a series of decisions that have been taken by the department that have been raising the ire of the public. The two of the most talked about decisions in the recent times are the plans to cancel deliveries on Saturday and to have higher rights imposed on delivering periodicals.
Under the new directive, even though the post offices will remain open on Saturdays so that people have convenience is accessing their post boxes but there will be no sight of the friendly daily visitor in the form of the postman at your doors.
In the second problem the Affordable Mail Alliance , officially submitted its motion to the Postal Regulatory Commission asking it to dismiss the United States Postal Services’ proposed rates for the deliveries of the periodicals. This alliance is recently-formed and comprises of the representatives of hundreds of businesses including magazine publishers. The group members are against the rate system that would force rates for periodicals mailers up 8 percent.
In a separate statement Nina Link, president and CEO of the Magazine Publishers of America, that is one of the members of the coalition, said that “This is a major step in MPA’s fight against the USPS’ unlawful attempt to shatter the price cap. MPA supports all efforts by this unprecedented alliance of the mailing community to continue to litigate aggressively. We hope the Postal Regulatory Commission grants the motion without delay.”
Both the decisions taken by the Postal Department are going to badly affect the beneficiaries. The first would play to distress the rural population who are dependant on the mail for many of their needs.
These decisions have come after months of careful discussions after the department has been burdened by the $3.8 billion operating loss last year. One of the main reasons for the drop in revenue is the falling rate in the mail handled by the postal services. The volume of mail has drastically reduced from 211 billion pieces in 2006 to 176 billion pieces in 2009. The experts believe that these numbers will fall further to 150 billion pieces by 2020, even though package deliveries are expected to increase slightly. The postal Department is also losing its biggest source of revenue, the experts believe that the First class Mail will drop to half in volume over the next decade.