How Stuff Works

Part-1: Bus Depot, Sangli

I was standing in a queue for reservation. I was 5th in the row. My turn came after 25 min. But that was not new for me. There is no computer, but the tickets are hand written. Sangli is a district place in so called developed state of Maharashtra. Computerized reservation is such a basic thing nowadays. But thats not how it works here. The standard procedure for reservation is like this- you tell the person sitting across the window the day of journey, destination and time. The man then finds out a register for that particular bus out of a huge stack. Then he slowly turns the pages until he finds out the required date. It takes him an eternity to find out an empty seat. He confirms everything again. . Finds out the relevant page in the ticket book. Then looks around for carbon paper and inserts two pieces in the booklet. Slowly writes the ticket. Fills the register. And all these actions are according to the standards established in government offices-1)Customer is the least important thing in front of you and 2) Do not make any movement faster than 2 cm/sec. Then he asks for the money in change. Bickers about something or the other. Whew!!! Finally you get the ticket.

Part-2: Prepaid rickshaw stop, Swargate.

I reached Swargate from Sangli at 10 in the morning. Came out of bus stand and went to pre-paid auto-rickshaw booth. There was a traffic police officer standing next to it who was supposed to attend the travelers like me. But instead, I found him smoking a cigarette (which by the way is illegal at public places). I tried to ask him very politely if I could hire a rikshaw. He did not even bother to look at me as if I was speaking to an invisible man next to him. I waited for an answer. Nothing! After seeing me trying to talk to him, a rickshaw driver came and said I should not disturb the officer but should go with him. But he was not ready to accept the fare by meter. He offered a flat rate. 50 Rs for Karvenagar. Obviously I was not going to fall for that. So I had to cross the busy crossroad and go to the nearest rickshaw stop to get a fare deal. Fortunately I did get 1. But thats not good enough. When you travel for 4 hrs to reach Pune in ST buses, you expect to reach home without any further headache. Thats exactly why these pre-paid rickshaw stops were introduced in the first place. But like all good schemes, this 1 was also broken down by the Police and rickshaw organizations together because they are the ones who will have to compromise.

Part-3: Teqip and Library
Teqip is Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme. My college is funded under this programme. There is a feedback session to be carried out to check the progress implementation of plans accordingly. Today I attended the same. Before that we had briefings about this programme from various professors and our director. Everybody emphasized on its importance and asked us to give a positive feedback. But that was quite understandable as the further grants are dependent on this feedback. I also thought that it was my duty to help my institution and I gave a very positive feedback. I was very proud of myself until I went to library. These library people make sure that my opinion about them is degraded with every visit. Two years ago our library was a book lending shop. We had to place an order on a particular day and return next day to collect the book if it was available. This system was as pathetic as it sounds. This was changed from current academic year and now we have free access. But still our library is in no respect a modern library. Here, the organization of books is the most disorganized activity. All the books are bar coded and are issued by swiping. But still we have to fill the little yellow papers in them for record. We have to make an entry of the book while leaving the library in a register. I mean whats the point of bar coding? We still have to get the books issued by the same old method plus an additional step of swiping it. In spite of all this, there are always instances of wrong records. We can keep the book for 7 days. No no…not the way you know it. We HAVE to keep it for 7 days. Not a day more, not a day less. We cannot renew it. If we are late, we pay fine. Here also they have made it sure that we will be miserable to the maximum possible extent. We have to collect a Chalan from store, fill it in, pay the fine in bank, deposit 1 receipt in bank and 1 in library. So much for a fine of Rs. 5! Ever been to BCL? This whole system sounds ridiculous, doesnt it?