India Post’s Gujarat pilot, under which five farmer producer organisations (FPOs) store inventory at post offices and dispatch orders through the postal network, has moved more than 40,000 items in eight months and, according to the report, helped the participating FPOs double their business.
Pilot mechanics: postal network as e-commerce fulfilment
The pilot began in the last week of November 2025 in Ahmedabad at the initiative of chief postmaster general Ganesh Sawaleshwarkar and has been extended to six additional locations: Jamnagar, Porbandar, Bhuj, Mehsana, Bhavnagar and Gandhinagar, businessline reported. FPOs keep their produce at post offices for sale through the MyStore App, which operates on the government-promoted ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) network. India Post serves as the logistics partner, receiving order alerts on a dashboard and preparing consignments for dispatch without FPO involvement, Sawaleshwarkar told businessline.
FPOs supply products in small packs of 100 gram to 1,000 gram, including dal, jeera (cumin), khakra, namkeen, chilli powder, pickles and millet cookies, which require minimal storage space. Sawaleshwarkar said post offices have enough space to accommodate the inventory. He credited Maninder Kaur Dwivedi, an additional secretary in the agriculture ministry handling FPOs, as the inspiration for the pilot.
"Whenever any order comes on the App, we being the logistic partner, get it on our dashboard and within 10-15 minutes (during office hour) that consignment is prepared for dispatch," Sawaleshwarkar told businessline.
Volumes and turnover
Campaign results:
- Over 40,000 items delivered through India Post in eight months across the seven locations.
- Ranmal FPC, a Jamnagar-based FPO, has shipped more than 30,000 items since joining the initiative in January.
- Ranmal FPC head Mahesh Karangia said the current fiscal turnover reached about ₹4 crore until July, against nearly ₹7 crore in the entire 2025-26 fiscal.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Items delivered via the pilot (8 months) | Over 40,000 |
| Ranmal FPC items delivered (since January) | Over 30,000 |
| FPOs registered under the pilot | 5 |
| FPOs registered in Gujarat under the Centre’s 10,000 FPO scheme | 426 |
| Ranmal FPC turnover, current fiscal to July | about ₹4 crore |
| Ranmal FPC turnover, entire 2025-26 fiscal | nearly ₹7 crore |
| Single-day peak orders reported | 5,000 |
Pricing and commercial model
Shipment charges are identical to those for normal customers and are weight-based, with a bulk discount applicable to farmers’ produce — the same discount offered to other bulk customers, Sawaleshwarkar said. There is no separate policy for FPOs. The arrangement addresses a known friction: many FPOs had been using India Post informally through different media, but delivery charges were considered exorbitant, and when shown on the product’s price in the App, many consumers did not complete payment. "We are trying to keep the cost of dispatch and the logistic expenditure to the minimum through the packaging and all those things we store it in our place in the post offices," Sawaleshwarkar said.
Implications for rural last-mile operators
For 3PL operators and last-mile carriers, the Gujarat pilot demonstrates how a national postal network can be used as low-cost fulfilment infrastructure for agri-producers, removing packing and dispatch duties from the producer. The model uses spare post-office space and existing postal routes, with FPOs managing inventory rotation: they are told to take back products for which orders are not received and replenish stock when exhausted.
Watch list
The pilot’s expansion depends on how many FPOs onboard onto the MyStore App and where those farmer collectives are located, Sawaleshwarkar told businessline. ONDC is already working to onboard more FPOs, and Sawaleshwarkar expects more will join once word spreads about growing orders. Order volumes, which started in the hundreds, have climbed since April and now include repeat purchases; one day logged 5,000 orders, though not on a daily basis. That demand pattern will shape whether the initiative moves beyond the current seven Gujarat locations.
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