Heights of red tapism!

My stay at the insti is about to come to an end and like any other relationship, I also had to go through all the bureaucratic norms to end the contract. Let me start with the list of due clearances that I had to get for which I had run around the insti - may be they want the students to have a tour all over the insti before leaving.

I was provided with a form containing a long list of clearances that I had to make from almost all labs in the department. Luckily my department - Computer Science - is small enough to size all labs in a single building - thanks for the branch change that I "put" from Mechanical Engg. So I payed visit to all labs - some where I have never even gone before - got signatures and got to meet a few new people. I was also made to run to the alumni affairs office (God only knows why) to get a sign from some officer there who casually signed it without even taking a glance at it.

My next task was to get the green flag from the mighty CCW (Chairman and Council of Wardens) office. For that I needed some preliminary clearance from a couple of hostel secretaries and my hostel warden. Since I am not a fan of the mess food, I opted not to register for the vacation mess. But the institute rule had it that regular dining charges will be deducted from the passing out students for the month of May also irrespective of whether they register and dine at the vacation mess or not. Oblivious of this fact, I happily strolled to the CCW office, to claim the positive mess balance that I had at the end of last semester from the infamous looters. After some paper work and indirections from one table to the next, I was directed to the accounts section where I learnt about this fact about vacation mess. And math showed that I had to pay about thousand bucks after the deduction for the vacation mess for which I never registered. I had to make a to and fro trip to Sharav in the hot Chennai sun to get my debit card.

But fate did not let go of me with that. By the time I reached the CCW office, they had started some maintanance work on the debit card swiping gadget. So I was redirected to the Mahanadi hostel to pay the cash using their debit card swiper. Once at Mahanadi, I had to stand in a queue and finally when I got to the officer, he insisted that I should have "sign from the CCW officer in red ink that too on the seal" for him to further process it. The CCW officer had signed in blue ink an inch away from the seal on my form. Big deal..After a minor quibble, I realized that I will never be able to convince him. So I went all the way back to CCW again for a red ink sign! The officer there refused to sign citing that the blue ink sign is enough. Ridiculouness at its peak! After a short bickering in tamil over phone between the CCW officer and the Mahanadi hostel officer, I was sent back to the Mahanadi shores with just the blue sign. This time around, things went fast. I paid the cash and went back to CCW to submit the challan. Now I have to wait till Thursday afternoon to officially get the "no dues" certificate from CCW. All this pain for some food that I never saw or ate! I am yet to get clearance from insti library and after that there is this nightmare of getting provisional degree certificate from the lazy bunch of ad block officers.

I really don't know why we have such a bureaucratic system. Why can't all this be computerized and centralized? Is this Indian Institute of Technology or Untechnology?!