Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Cutting the Red Tape

This is the curse of the NITC Administrative Block, otherwise called lovingly: AB, by us. When we were admitted to NIT, this was the building that inspired us the most by its beauty. Today this is the only one that shames us in NITC by its virtually Govt. Institution style functioning.

Story start : We poor final years at NITC have to finish some formalities called 'clearing the no dues', for which we have to go through the cursed system that prevails at the place mentioned above. It is like a kick-in-the-ass for the final years who are leaving the college, to force them out of college in case they ever had some love towards the college and wanted to stay.
At the head of it all is the worst processing bottleneck in NITC history, the deputy registrar, the laziest guy in such a high position I've seen. The finance section is equally bad.

I and Narendar went to the Academic section (hereforth called AS) to get our transcripts, which we would have to send to Singapore for our application. So here starts ther story :

Lady in the AS : You have to go to the DR, he has to make a decision
We go to DR
DR : You have to come with an application letter, a bill for 520 rs paid in Finance, and ur grade cards

We make a letter then go to finance

Finance : Its 3 :35 now, we are closed for the day (closing time is 3:30)

None of our 'pleases' and 'ayyo chechy's work. Next day, me and naren go to finance early, pay the bill, go to AS

AS : Give the letter and bill to DR, the grade cards here

We go to DR

DR : Give everything to AS

We go to AS

AS : You need to get these cards attested, go to your department and get them attested, or from some faculty here.

We go to the Registrar who is from our department and hence can actually attest for us

Registrar : Im too busy: Go to department.

We go to deparment, get it attested by HOD, run back. AS tells us the transripts will be ready in a day. We went the next day, and the next and they still werent. We had to push them all the way to get it done. Finally we did get it 2 days later.

Similar thing happened for our grade cards. You should understand how important these green pieces of paper called 'grade cards' are. 65 guys in our class cant go to their jobs without their grade cards. We've been bugging AS for 1.5 years now asking for the grade cards. And this was the last day for many of them. So we went there, asking them the status.

Came to know they were printed, but not verified. We pushed the AS to verify.

AS pushed the matter to DR.

We bugged DR sooo much that he pushed it back to AS, as an order.

Time : 5 pm, AB about to close.

Helpful lady in AS starts verifying. 5 of us (me, naren, donna, joseph, laxmi) are determined to break the red tape of 1 year no matter wat, so we also sit and verify. In the middle some cards have a problem which can only be corrected in Computer Centre, so Naren runs off to do it.

After verification, we cross check it with the details in AS's records. Some cards are yet to return ,and DR is about to leave. Luckily we made it just in time for Dr to sign on them.

Time : 5:50 pm, record timing for AB.

This way, we did in 45 minutes what they were waiting for 1.5 years to do. And thus secured the future of around 65 guys. We 5 were reall satisfied, and also our minds pretty much made up on lodging a complaint to someone about the system at the AB.

The only problem is, whoever we can complain to would also be part of the AB system himself :-)..

16 comments:

The Third Twin said...

Good work of penning down these events the way it happened.. .although we know that there is not gonna be much change. even if we lodge a complaint there is no one over there to read it and take subsequent actions.what and whom are we gonna target? we will have to change the very roots on which the administration was erected. we go point our fingers to them they will point back three fingers. there are umpteen number of faculty over there who will start blaming the present generation and other issues regarding us. one possible way to solve this grade card issue is to give departments the job of issuing grade cards and as we do the registration for the next semester subsequently get the signature from DR... The Only solution( it is time consuming)I can see is that the students shud fine tune themselves and then start blaming the system by getting into the system. but for that u need a students council, and of all the ppl u know the problems in having a students council :) But getting power and hold in the administration decisions by the students can make a significant change...

Quest said...

Ya the AB is the perfect institution capable of stretching out the time available with us and our patience. The day I was to return, after clearing the no dues and all was waiting for DR to return to his room( h was in the adjoining room laughing away his time) to get my certif attested, it took almost half a hour not to mention numerous other instances just to get his sign...
Bloody sadistic cannibals X-(

Quest said...

And standing outside his room I was wondering what should be the highest qualification that one has to get to be able to hold such a post ;) and giving me company all through that ordeal was the restless msn :D

VV$ said...

why dont they make this whole thing online? it wil save so much of their and our time..

Hari Vishnu said...

@naren

true man true.. and anyway how many generations of our seniors have been facing this.. yet no one has done anything.. so i guess it comes witg the system..

but im not willing to give up totally yet.. we shudnt be like the rest of our passouts and not do anything abt it thinking we are passing out after all ..

Hari Vishnu said...

@viajero

ive heard countless tales of horror in that cursed building man.. g man used t tell me stories of how he got this extra OT credit and hence had to run up and down the AB a hundred times to get any of his grade cards after that..

Hari Vishnu said...

@vvs

probably that cud be a solution..

but then again, look at the sadass DSS system :-)..

(for non-nitcians - dss = decision support system, the totally unreliable unpredictable online system in nitc that screws up the red tape rather than reducing it- check out www.dss.nitc.ac.in)

Hari said...

Way to go, man! I appreciate your guts in fighting the red-tape. It takes quite a spirited person to do so!!

Wishing you a red-tape-free life at Nanjiang! :-)

Hari Vishnu said...

@hari

wat place in the world is free of red tape? i just wish theres not much of it there..

Neethu said...

hmm..so true...even i have been at the receiving end of the AB's @#%^^## treatment...

Unknown said...

man..u got a way to vent ur anger against the AB...me still searching a way to do so.....u r absolutely rite ab the fact that AB's functioning mode is a disgrace to d college ....they got to speed it up sm way....

Anonymous said...

way to go against such people...hope it creates some awareness among the people who r in college (incl. me)

Drunken Mind.. said...

dude...good job as usual...even i ve started bloging now...tell me how to add blogs to check list...

Hari Vishnu said...

@all

hehe.. i see a lot of NITcians are just waiting to throw out at the AB for the stuff that happens there..

@subrata

cool u into blogging now eh.. i dint understand wat u mean by checklist.. do u mean the list of blogs to check out?

Abhi said...

Welcome to the world of GOVT offices. Wait till u go to the passport office, or the MD dept for getting the license or even to the taluk office for getting election id card. I'd had a tough time getting all these things. But had a surprisingly fast time to clear my college dues

Hari Vishnu said...

@ abhi

hmm yea.. been there for the license and voters id thing.. really got suffocated in those office walls..