India Post
India Post: New Sustainable Information Hubs
India has 155,333 post offices; almost 3 times, more than China's 57,000, which is the next nearest, in terms of points of sale reach. India Post has been re-branding and building up on its product capability over the last few years, and today, this vast real estate can establish itself to impact the economic, ecologic, and social networks of the country. Owing to its local character and identity, and the ability to reach everyone in India, India Post is in a unique position to address the new challenges that Indians are and will be facing in the future.
The intervention takes the shape of a central service core at each post office, which is developed to generate solar power with support from the National Solar Mission and the MNRE Roof Top solar PV Scheme. The roof area of all the post offices 6,988,500 sq m (average roof area/post office: 45sqm) can be used to generate 1,677,240,000kWh which is enough electricity for 3,599,227 people. By introducing a computer in each of these locations, and with constant electrical supply from the solar panels to power at the least, a computer, light and fan, this enormous physical infrastructure can be transformed into an interconnected network of 153,300 nodes which will lay the basis of connecting a billion Indians.
It is recommended that a Pilot Project be launched with 5 nodes located in each part of the country to demonstrate the efficacy of the network.