The government has submitted a bill to the State Duma that should provide "Pochta Rossii" with new sources of income. The document provides for the creation of an electronic postal system for exchanging legally significant messages between state information systems, organizations, and users.
Within the system, citizens, companies, and individual entrepreneurs will be able to create digital mailboxes through "Gosuslugi". Through these, applications, notifications, notices, demands, and other documents that may have legal consequences will be sent. If the addressee does not have an account in ESIA or the technical capability to receive a message online, "Pochta Rossii" will be able to convert the document into a paper mailing and deliver it as a regular letter.
Sending electronic messages through such a system will in most cases be paid for by the sender. However, the bill provides for exceptions: for example, no fee will be charged for a number of messages in the field of state and municipal control, public services, and housing and communal services. The amount of the fee and the categories of users should be determined by the government.
Separately, a monthly fee for using a digital mailbox is introduced. It will be charged for receiving messages by legal entities, as well as for sending messages, with the exception of government bodies and the Central Bank. If the user does not pay the fee, access to the mailbox may be suspended.
The bill also effectively assigns the forwarding of registered letters with legally significant messages to federal postal organizations. In addition, communication operators are planned to be obliged to transmit SMS messages from "Pochta Rossii" free of charge, related to the receipt of postal items, transfers, and other significant user actions.