PIB TrackerThe Post Office published its targets, and its 51 per cent on appeals
Of 1.35 lakh cleanliness sites, 1.5 lakh grievances and 1,500 appeals targeted, the Department reports 55, 67 and 51 per cent achieved at the campaign’s halfway mark.
What happened
- The Department of Posts reported Special Campaign 6 progress for 2 to 31 October 2026, with targets of 1,50,000 public grievances, 1,500 appeals and cleanliness drives at 1,35,000 sites.
- Achievement as of 16 October: 73,814 sites (about 55 per cent), 1,00,214 grievances resolved (about 67 per cent), 764 appeals disposed (about 51 per cent).
- E-waste: 17,980 kg disposed, generating Rs 27.64 lakh of revenue.
- Innovation reported: the West Bengal Circle renovated a manager’s chamber at the Mail Motor Service, Kolkata using recycled wooden scrap, with departmental carpenters and multi-tasking staff.
- Citizen services: DigiPost, a phygital service delivering Gujarat Police traffic e-challans physically after digital transmission.
For Prelims
- Special Campaign: an annual government-wide drive coordinated by DARPG on Swachhata and disposal of pending matters - files, public grievances, MP references, parliamentary assurances, appeals, scrap and office space - now in its sixth edition.
- Grievance versus appeal: a citizen files a grievance on CPGRAMS; if dissatisfied with its disposal, an appeal goes to a designated appellate authority. Appeal disposal is the harder and more meaningful indicator, because it tests whether the first decision was right.
- CPGRAMS: the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, the single portal through which grievances are routed to ministries, with timelines now compressed to 21 days under DARPG’s reform instructions.
- Why the Post Office has the largest grievance load: the Department of Posts runs about 1.55 lakh post offices, the world’s largest postal network, and handles savings accounts, insurance and parcel delivery - so it generates consumer grievances at a scale no other department does.
- E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022: require channelling of electronic waste to registered recyclers under extended producer responsibility; government offices dispose of condemned equipment through e-auction, which is the source of the scrap revenue figures in these campaigns.
- India Post Payments Bank and the last mile: the postal network’s comparative advantage is physical reach into villages, which is why services like DigiPost, Aadhaar enrolment, passport Seva Kendras and doorstep banking are routed through it.
- Phygital: a service generated digitally and delivered physically - the model for reaching citizens without smartphones or reliable connectivity, and the postal network’s natural product.
- Why publishing targets matters: an output number without a denominator cannot be audited. A department that publishes target and achievement invites scrutiny; one that publishes only achievement does not.
For UPSC: A small release that models what administrative reporting should look like, and gives you a denominator for every other campaign claim this month. Deploy it on grievance redress and CPGRAMS, on administrative reform and performance measurement, on the postal network as delivery infrastructure, and on e-waste management in government.
What it is NOT: No figure for grievances pending at the start, so the 1,50,000 target cannot be read as a share of the backlog. No circle-wise breakdown, no average disposal time, and no quality measure - a grievance marked resolved is not the same as a citizen satisfied, which is exactly what the 764 appeals represent. The e-waste tonnage has no baseline either, and nothing is said about where the 17,980 kg went or whether the recyclers were registered. No file-review or space-freed numbers, which are the campaign’s other two heads.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS2.15 · GS2.10 · Linkage L1
Anchor
The Department of Posts has published both its Special Campaign targets and its achievement against them: 73,814 of 1,35,000 cleanliness sites, 1,00,214 of 1,50,000 public grievances and 764 of 1,500 appeals, as of 16 October.
Substantiation (data)
That is about 55 per cent on sites, 67 per cent on grievances and 51 per cent on appeals at the campaign’s halfway point. E-waste disposal of 17,980 kg generated Rs 27.64 lakh. The Department also reports DigiPost, which delivers Gujarat Police traffic e-challans physically after digital transmission, and a circle-level initiative reusing wooden scrap for office renovation.
Position
The disclosure is the story. Across this month’s campaign filings, almost every department has published activity - sites cleaned, drives held, workshops conducted - and almost none has published the target it was measured against. A percentage can only be computed where both numbers exist, and the Post Office has supplied both, including on the indicator where it is weakest. That is the minimum standard for any performance claim in government.
Counterpoint
On substance the numbers are middling and the weakest is the one that matters. Appeal disposal at 51 per cent means a citizen who was dissatisfied with the first answer is still waiting in nearly half the cases, and grievance resolution counts closure rather than satisfaction. Without a starting backlog, even the 1,00,214 figure cannot be placed - it may be a large share of pendency or a small one.
Way forward
Publish opening pendency alongside targets, circle-wise disposal, and average time to disposal for grievances and appeals separately. If DARPG required target-and-achievement reporting from every department in the format the Post Office has used, the campaign would become measurable rather than merely large.
Conclusion
The least glamorous release of the day and the most honest: a department that published the number it is furthest from meeting.
Deploys into: Grievance redress and CPGRAMS · Performance measurement in administration · Postal network as delivery infrastructure · E-waste in government offices
Ministry of Communications · 2026-10-18 · PRID 2324940 · PIB source ↗