No Dues Certificate

This is the one and only time when i put something official on my blog, but perhaps because it has become pretty much of a personal agenda for me.

The No Dues procedure till last year was very tedious, and called for each graduating student to get as many as 30 signatures and most of the times for no reason.It was therefor my agenda to get rid of this ridiculous procedure.After about a month of struggle and tens of meetings the idea was approved by the director and an office order was released to revamp the procedure.

The central idea is the point no.5 in the office order, that no student needs to get any signatures from anybody or for that matter we do not need any no dues certificate to get a degree.Instead it is now the responsibility of the administration to check their records and bring to declare if there are any demands against our name. Only once the list is declared if there are dues against your name, you ll have to clear them.

FAQ

1.So do i have to stay till 27 May to make sure that i m done with this place ?

No the idea is that by default there are no dues against you,by the time you finish your BTP eval your hall,dept and library would already have prepared a list of defaulters see if your name figures there... if yes clear your dues and leave.

2.My department has given me a form to get signatures, what do i do ?

Well clearly they are not following the office order if they are doing this, remind them gently about this order.If they still dont agree technically it is their responsibility to send demands if any against your name to academic section,and after that if dont submit the form there will be no action against you.

I cant think of any more questions right now, if you have them pls write them in as comments, i ll be glad to reply.

Some Questions that suma asked along with the answers :

Q1. By when do we have to clear the dues?

You can clear the dues anytime beginning right now. Bul lets go into a lil bit more detail :

1) Hall : will stop mess on 30th April and shud be ready with the account in 5 days. They are expected to put up a notice in their respective notice boards abt the dues. So u look at the notice and pay the requisite amount.

2) Dept : the work stops on the day of BTP eval so 5 days from then

3) Library : Many students return their books after GVs and evals to officially they will not compile any list before 20th May although you can check ur own account and leave if u have no dues.

4) Gymkahana, HMC ,NCC,NSS : usually they dont have demand against any student, the only possible case is if u have not returned a trophy or if their was a fine against u (usually a punishment in a DC) , if u think u fall into these categories then check once. But most of you dont.

Q2. Do we have to clear dues separately at different locations or at one place, like the cash section in case of library fines?

All dues are cleared centrally at SBI bank. Their is a special form though which will be available at all these loactions as well as in cash section.

Q3. We get the dues against us if any, we dont pay, and leave the institute. Since the different sections mentioned will take time processing the data, we'll be gone till the 20th of May. What happens then?

You are expected to pay within the following seven days. You can perhaps ask some of ur friends who might be staying back to pay for you.

Q4. Even if they keep my degree, i can still get a provisional one and run away right? [:P]

Yes !! Absolutely [:)]

Demos

I have always held the belief that we as human beings arent really looking to achieve anything, all we want is a phoney objective to motivate ourselves into one direction or another.The thing that matters is the journey and perhaps the reflections afterward.I say this with a third persons' observation both of myself(with all my irrepresible whims) and the world in general.All this time all i wanted was some time for myself...and now that i finally have it i tend to waste it in incovievably ridiculous ways .Never the less what i adore about today is the fact that i have returned to my blog,which is as deserted and desolate as myself.

It is no secret that i love to speak.The sheer beauty of articulation, the expression of ideas and ideals while capturing the most abstract of thoughts succintly in a sentence, has always kept me excited about speaking.Probably even the process of writing for me is accompanied with the mental imagery of a crowd reacting to every phrase that i utter.

Following is an article I wrote for the campus newpaper, Scholars Avenue. Though it has been written keeping Kharagpur and its dynamics in mind, the morale of the article applies to every domacratic organisation. Here Goes ...

A college in Chennai fined two of its students on grounds of indiscipline.The said “indiscipline” was that one of the students was a female and the two students were sitting together.Hundreds of engineering colleges in South India have uniforms and despite being a very unpopular decision among students, it still holds. Hundreds of colleges in India have a ban on students moving out of their residential colleges at all.Many of them lock their hostel gates after 10 'o clock. The point of stating all this is for us to first understand that we are indeed living in a very liberal environment. When it comes to treating students like human beings, Indian colleges fare very badly and Indian engineering colleges come at the bottom of this pyramid.Our institute gives us the

opportunity to appreciate the concept of democracy. In my one year as VP, TSG, I have realized that our institute has always given an attentive ear whenever a reasonable demand has been made by the students. Within the constraints of administrative policies, problems and perspective, steps have always been taken to make students' life better.One must realize that students move straight out of high school and enter this deserted island we proudly call IIT Kharagpur. As they graduate, they knock the doors of the big bad corporate world.Therefore it becomes essential that apart from the curriculum of Engineering and Science, one learns the liberal social sciences, languages and culture and amongst other things, the power of the institution of democracy. The very democracyfor which millions of Indians sacrificed their lives.

The power of democracy does notlie on the elected few, but in the 'Demos' or the people. Therefore if you feel something is going wrong, take up the responsibility and set it right. Recently a few students approached me, saying the restaurant owners in KGP do not behave well with the students. As a result, I took up the issue and called a meeting of all restaurant owners. If more such complaints are brought,serious action can be taken against these owners and certainly the situation will improve.

Similarly if you feel the candidates are not performing, don't follow any blind trend, judge by yourself and vote him in. Nobody can stop you from voting who you want to. If you feel the entire approach to the elections is wrong, wait for the next hall elections and make it an issue then.Make the candidates in the hall elections realize what your opinions are. How you think elections should be contested? Having been a candidate myself, I can assure you that the points raised by people during elections stay in t h e mi n d o f t h e e l e c t e d representative. Not just this, if you feel the right candidate is not being supported, demand an explanation.Take this matter up with the hall president.

The conclusion of all this is simple. As long as you sleep in your rooms, you do not have the right to demand things on a platter. Its only when you stand up to yourself that things will begin to change in your town.