"Stamp"ing a new business

Money can buy you anything, well, almost. That’s what you think when you read this news from our Indian postal services, which have announced that any individual or company has get his photo or even the logo of the company on a postage stamp if they pay up Rs.12 lakh. From a time where a picture on the stamp commerarated an event or a personality, we have now come down to pure commerce.

Imagine having a Dabur postage stamp or a Mukesh Ambani stamp? Maybe the film stars will start using this as a promotional campaign – plastering photos of the stars before a movie is to launch? What is Rs12 lakh in the bigger scheme of things?

Known as “My Stamp”, this can be printed on 5000 sheets, comprising of 60,000 postage stamps. The postal department was as such earlier allowing customized stamps but was on a much smaller scale. Already customized stamps were issued for Amazon India, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and has received proposals to print My Stamp from Western Union, SNDT Women's University, Allahabad High Court and many others. Currently, it has proposals worth Rs.2 crore and it is targeting to earn Rs.60 crore revenue from this “My Stamp” in this fiscal.

This is a good initiative as it will mean that India Post will earn more money, so why not? With more and more people relying on email, this is a good way to keep this service going. And it is not as though people have stopped sending letters – last fiscal, the India Post handled 570 crore mails.