An Interview with CRC
Written on January 20th, 2023 by {"login"=>"jcbphc21", "email"=>"f20181005@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"Journal Club", "last_name"=>"BPHC"}Nikhita Upadhyaya: So today, we have one of the members of CRC, Chris Alex Mattam. I'm Nikhita Upadhyaya, and we also have Anika Agarwal. I'll now move on to Anika for the first question.
Anika Agarwal: So, firstly, could you elaborate on the role of CRC and whether your tenure reflects your duties as part of CRC?
Chris Alex Mattam: CRC, per the definition, is to scrutinize the transactions being done by the SUC; we scrutinize MOUs for sponsorships for any dealings the SUC is taking. So, to manage the entire finances and plan events, we have the SUC who helps them in carrying out transactions and helping out in the fests. For the second part of the question, the first part of my tenure, it was quite a joyride. And there have been many ups and downs. Like there have been cases where there have been rifts between us and the SUC. And the way you handle those kinds of situations is what determines how good of a committee you can make.
Anika: For the uninitiated, how would you say your responsibilities differ from the Accounts Division? And what was the frequency of collaboration between the Accounts Division and CRC? How do your responsibilities differ from the Accounts Division?
Chris: Okay, so the whole process of payments is that suppose SUC wants to conduct an event. Say there is prize money, for example. First, the SUC will plan out the event. Then they will inform us that there is such an event and prize money for this; we usually have a check of feasibility, whether we have the finances. As per the Constitution, there are different kinds of financial transactions, FT1, FT2, FT3, and FT4. So, we must check whether there are enough funds for other senate activities. So, we check that, and then we give the green light, and they give us the bills and a list. We forward this list to SWD; after compiling it and scrutinizing the bills, SWD creates letters and asks the Accounts Division to pay. We don't have direct contact in this entire process with the accounts division. Now, if there's an unusual delay in the payments, for reimbursement or prize money, in that case, we speak first with SWD, our POC in SWD. And if the SWD POC asks us to talk with the accounts division, then we communicate with the account division. The difference between account division and CRC is that we only have a few ways to make the payment, except at the time of fest, when we can make payments through the Students Union account with the physical account, which is there in SBI. Or we can make cash transactions from the cash collected during the fest, but most of the transactions in our college go through the account division, which CRC directly does not make the payment.
Anika: Okay, you had mentioned something called FT1, FT2, FT3, which is as per the Constitution. Could you elaborate on that for the GB?
Chris: Sure. Now, FT1 and FT3 are something which the President has the purview over. And the general secretary has purview FT2. It is not easy to keep track of exactly how much money is there in FT1, FT2, FT3, and FT4 because, to a great extent, it depends upon SWD giving us the figures. So it's difficult for us to keep track of all the transactions because it's a single ledger, the SEF ledger. Now, we keep track of it because, for most of the funds, SUC conducts very few events during the year. So since they don't spend many funds, it's usually used in the fest. There is an issue now that there's an FT4 transaction category exclusively reserved for the Tech Senate's expenditures. And we don't have a way to segregate it because if there's over-expenditure in the fest, which usually happens, that money is lost in that expenditure. We are also figuring out ways to go about with the logistics since most of the money was used in FT1 during the fest.
Anika: Okay, you mentioned certain drifts with the Student Union. What were these rifts exactly about, and how did you handle them? And how are these rifts managed? Where were they left unresolved? Or could the SU and CRC come to specific common grounds regarding certain situations?
Chris: Now, SUC has the authority to go and make any payments they want. But the SWD and accounts division will always ask for CRC's approval for the transactions to ensure that we have done our scrutinizing; because it's a student expenditure. So the rifts are something that you have to reach common ground, and that is something we always have been able to work out between SUC and CRC.
Anika: All right. How would you describe your relationship with the Election Commission and Student Union during your tenure?
Chris: Well, the election commission is a body which works closely with us apart from the SUC. Because of many elements of the Constitution, it's something we cannot speak for because the interpretation of the Constitution is with the Election Commission. So there have been many instances in my tenure where I have personally reached out to Election Commission, and they have always been there to come and help us out. Even during the fest, we often ask them to help us with the logistics. My relationship with Election Commission has been excellent as a part of the commission. Even with the SUC, our relationships have been good. Apart from work life, we are good friends; although we have rifts here and there regarding work, we often look past the work.
Nikhita: There was a delay in the budget presentation of Atmos. So what exactly caused this delay? And since the CRC is a monitoring body, what did you do or could have done to prevent the delay?
Chris: I can't speak on behalf of the President, unfortunately. But the budget was submitted quite late. And we had many changes to make to the budget, unfortunately. One of the key reasons why the budget was delayed was because there was no opening balance for the CF from the accounts division to us. And the President wanted to create a budget based on how much opening balance he has, which is, in my opinion, a wise decision only. But because of that, we had a huge delay and, unfortunately, many logistical issues. So from our side, we can't do much about it because it's a constitutional requirement that the Election Commission decide what course of action they take. So the EC had put out a notice that this was a final warning for the President and a violation of the Constitution. And the Election Commission, within the past week, had also taken up multiple actions against the President for violating the other, like making further constitutional violations. So that is something which Election Commission looks after the constitutional violations. CRC only monitors the procedure manual violations.
Nikhita: Okay, so you mentioned that there was a delay with the accounts division, right? Do you know what happened, or could you give us an insight into what happened?
Chris: Well, the accounts division, like our Students Union account and the Institute as a whole, was being audited by independent External Auditors. And there were many discrepancies, which were found in the Institute accounts, due to which the account region stated that there were many missed losses in the fest, which they still needed to enter. So, the SUF required more time to finalize the Student Union Council's opening balance. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for an answer or reply from them.
Nikhita: Did the Technical Secretary make any advances to push the budget when it was being delayed? Did they do anything on their part that they could have done?
Chris: Well, to be honest, in at least ATMOS budget, what had happened was the SUC and Tech Sec had discussed together and finalized the budget, and then they reached out to us for ratification. We don't know whether the Tech Senate had finalized their part of the budget before the SUC or after the SUC or the intricate details we don't know; we were just presented with the final budget as a whole. And, even by that time, since everybody's budget was prepared, there was no push from the Tech Sec side because the budgets were prepared.
Nikhita: So you said you'd only been present at the final budget? Is that what usually happens, or should you have known beforehand?
Chris: Ideally, so you can go about, however, because either the SUC is confident that they can make a very good budget in which they do not require CRC support or aid, they can go ahead and make a budget. And then they can present it to us. And we will ratify it based on the previous year's figures and take quotes from vendors. But mostly, we go by the word of SUC. And this time, they chose not to like at least for ATMOS, they chose not to consult with us, and they had made the budget first, and they asked us for ratification at a later point in time. Just like that is around the 19th or 20th. They asked us first for ratification. And then there were several major changes in the budget which we had suggested to them. And they had incorporated, due to which the budget was again delayed for being presented in a GBM. So after that, for Arena and VM, the strategy has been different; as you see, at least the current general secretary has reached out to us even for the budget preparation from an early stage. But yeah, to be honest, the scenario hasn't changed much. The budget is being presented to us pretty late. Not from the inception, like the start of the creation or anything.
Anika: Arena is around the corner, and you just mentioned that you are trying to change the strategy, but again, there's already a much more delay in the budget of ARENA.
Chris: Yes, the President had submitted a budget to us, and we suggested several discussions. We hold meetings almost daily to discuss the budget, cut down the expenditure, and see if the revenue is feasible. But we also require the SUC to finalize a decision and give us that decision, whether they made the change or not, because otherwise, we cannot force them to make changes according to our whims and fancies.
Anika: Again, I don't understand why this work of telling the SUC about the expenditures and then them confirming could have been done earlier.
Chris: It could have happened earlier; the thing is, we were not consulted unless the budget is submitted to us or like they're asked us for help; we cannot go and, like, tell them that okay, we will come and corroborate the budget or we'll come and sit with you guys. We don't do that. We are a province committee. So, once they reach out to us that we have finalized the budget or we require your help for creating the budget and ratifying the budget if they wanted to have wanted our help from the start itself, as you know, we are putting this value within the service feasible, then that would have been a different strategy. If they have made a budget and come to us for ratification, they need to expect that we will suggest several changes, like cutting down expenditures and making the budget more feasible. So, we required time; if we had been in the process right from the start with SUC, maybe we won't have required too much time for the ratification. However, if we come to an end, we would have to suggest the changes, and then they will have to. They will depend upon how quickly their responses incorporate those changes and submit the updated version.
Anika: Since there has been a delay in the ATMOS budget, why did both the CRC and SUC not consider the second strategy of getting involved right in the beginning?
Chris: And also, as I've mentioned, it is dependent upon the SUC to reach out to us and do the thing like it is upon their decision whether they want to consult us right from the start or at the end now. We can't tell them unofficially. We have always told them that if they require any help, any data from our end, for facilitating the creation of the budget, please reach out to us, but they have reached out again late. So that's why there is a current extension and delay in the budget allocation.
Anika: The entire GB is aware now that the SUF is running in negatives after ATMOS. How would you explain the situation at hand?
Chris: Okay, do you mean the SUF is running negative after ATMOS? Yeah. Okay. So to date, we have not finalized how much profit loss has been made in ATMOS. We hope to finalize that figure once we reach campus; we don't have all the bills for reimbursement and advances taken to date. Once all of those are submitted, we should be able to provide a rough figure, at least for the profit and loss statement on the fest. So we can't comment on whether the fest has been a profit or loss. But before the fest, we were already in quite a negative balance. And that is quite detrimental. Like because it affects how we can have various daily activities. You know, like how we can finance, say there's a math, math, mathematics day. And you know, AXIOM wants to do an event, or there's a cultural night or something. And there are expenditures reimbursements like that. So those events will have to be scaled down accordingly because the finances are not good. In that sense, it's not a good idea because even the scale of the fest which you're organizing, right, further, that is Pearl, Arena, you'd have to reduce the scale of the fest because you don't have the finances. So that is the only way that the negative balance affects it.
Anika: You mentioned reducing the scale of the Fests, so what strategy or how would you think it would impact the GB soon and what decisions should be taken regarding all the future events and the major fests coming up? Given the current condition of the funds and everything?
Chris: Well, that is something which, to be honest, if the negative balance of SUF is not dealt with properly, then it could affect a lot on the scale of the fest we could have for Pearl, or the feasibility of Pearl, at least from the administration side, because we don't have the finances right, these negative balances at the end of the day or loss for the Institute. And we are currently in murky waters where we are kind of having a gamble to what extent the administration is willing to bear the loss, right? So on that basis, the SUC should come up with several strategies to make revenue, much revenue, to be honest, to negate this negative balance and reduce it to zero or make it a bit positive so that we can have a good Pearl. So usually, in a year, we get around, get the SUF, the 450 rupees, which is charged from every student, and Director's Fund. And we have sponsorships for the fest and registrations, accommodations and everything. But still, even if the SUF and the Director's Fund come, we don't know exactly what the opening balance will be. And I think we'll get the opening balance the proper one this semester, like before Pearl; we'll have to see whether we can get it before Arena. But at least before Pearl, we should be able to get the opening balance and how much money we have. So if the SUF is in a negative balance, it will negatively affect how much the scale of the cultural fest can be done.
Anika: Is it advisable to carry out a small fest VM and one major fest Arena now without knowing the current balance?
Chris: Well, I've already informed you that even SWD POC asked me to get the opening balance before finalizing the budget. But unfortunately, we did have several vendor payments pending for Atmos and prize money, which has to be given out. So I asked them to give us a little time and let me discuss it with SUC. The issue is that we don't have the time to wait for an opening balance and then plan the budget. So, for the time being, we will run on the assumption that we have enough funds for the fest.
Anika: So how did the President handle the budget overshoot during Atmos, and what do you think he could have done to prevent it?
Chris: Well, to be honest, we were not there right from the beginning when the budget requirements were taken for ATMOS, so we don't know why this expenditure was not accounted for in the original budget because the President gave us full assurance that every single expenditure was accounted for and we did not do much research from our end because we had very limited time for ratifying the budget we had. We still were delayed by 1-2 days past the deadline, right for the 30-day deadline. So we were under much pressure from the SUC from the Associate Dean to finalize the budget and present it in the GBM, even from the Election Commission. We didn't ask for quotations; we asked the President to have accounted for all of the expenditures. We had heard that there could be overspending in the production and all of these areas. But the President had assured us that everything was accounted for multiple times. And that's why we didn't object much. So once such over-expenditures started to come one after the other, we, at one point, stopped him and told him, tell us why you have not accounted for any of these expenditures. And since he could not give us a proper answer, we notified the Union and informed them that such expenditures were happening. And since the President is liable and answerable to the Union, we felt that the President should give the Union an answer rather than giving us.
Nikhita: Coming to the issues of coupons during the fest, there were extremely long queues where the GB stood for a long time, and they realized that the coupons weren't available. This issue has remained the same because it happened during Orbe Novo, so why weren't any necessary changes made in the procedure and were there any actions that could have taken place?
Chris: So right before I joined CRC, I worked as a volunteer under CRC, so even during that period, in Orbe Novo itself, I had hoped that the coupon system could be improved upon, but unfortunately, the coupon system isn't entirely something that CRC can implement, it is something that smart campus, DOSM, SUC, even DOSH has to sit together and discuss over collectively, how the coupon system is going to be implemented and how the queues can be negated. Now, DOSM has done a decent job to try and reduce the queues, but still, we require a lot more input and effort to be put in to try and improve the system much better than what it currently is.
Nikhita: So how will you go about the next fest, like Arena and Pearl?
Chris: Yes, so at least for Arena, we are currently discussing with DOSM; we are trying to finalize which locations to set up coupon counters and how many coupons we should expect to keep for the sale. Most of the delay happens because once the coupons run out, they have to come back to CRC for a fresh batch of coupons, so to reduce that delay of time and to ensure that such breaks do not happen much, we are trying to make guesstimates on how much coupons we should ideally give because if we give too many coupons, it is an unnecessary risk for DOSM individuals, they are carrying a lot of financial risks because it is their responsibility to handle all of that money, the cash or the coupons, so you can't just dump all of the coupons onto them and ask them to sell it if they can't sell it they still have to bring them back and tally them. Otherwise, they are held responsible for the same. We are currently discussing with DOSM where we can put the stalls so that the crowd is dispersed. There is no crowding in one particular location, how many coupons to give and we are also trying to bring some other initiatives. However, we will have to discuss with SUC and finalize whether the solutions we are thinking of are feasible and if we can implement them.
Nikhita: So what did DOSM do to negate the queues during ATMOS?
Chris: So DOSM, mostly, puts up the barricading so that the lines are well-organized; the second thing is that DOSM is the main body which suggests how much coupons have to be taken; let's say, they take 5 lakh worth of coupons, and they feel like five lakhs are getting sold in too little time, they can come and ask us and the SUC, that gives us 7 lakh worth of coupons, we will be able to sell it and there will be no issue, so once they make that kind of suggestions, then we can get them coupons, so their role is mostly, in how much coupons they are going to take, and how they manage their crowd, so for the crowd management at least. Usually, Controlz or DOSH helps them out. Since they keep their juniors on the desk, they are also the ones who can set up multiple stalls, for example, cashless/smart campus stalls at two different corners, which had happened at ATMOS, they can keep a cash stall somewhere else, and they can disperse the crowd like that.
Anika: How would you explain the situation of profit sharing between the tech senate and SU?
CHRIS: Well, the profit-sharing scenario, to be honest, is quite an interesting thing because even my seniors cannot exactly advise me on this because it has never been done before in the history of BITS, and we have tried reaching out to the other campuses as well regarding if there is any similar system goes over there, and the other CRCs have also told us that there is no system, so as I told you in the starting of the interview as well, there is very little for us on how we can segregate the transactions of FT1, FT2, FT3, FT4. So, right now, we are pushing for a ledger to be created by the accounts division, a separate ledger, from the SUF, you can call it, say, tech senate ledger, and we credit the amount that is the 25 per cent SUF and as well as, whatever 60-40 is there, from the SUF to this ledger, so that we can maintain it because we have tried creating a physical account similar to the students union account. However, there has been quite a logistical issue, so we are pushing for the ledger and hoping to transfer funds like that.
Nikhita: So you mentioned something about a ledger, that there was some logistical issue? Could you elaborate as to what happened?
Chris: We tried to create a technical secretary account because vendor payments can't be made directly; only Bhavya's signature will be there. So we tried to create a technical secretary's account, a physical account similar to the SUF in SBI. But because it is a corporate account, we require several letterheads from SWD, which initially we had acquired, but then SBI suddenly came out with new requirements for the documents. So by that time, our semester was over, and we had our comprehensive exams; I called the technical secretary, and we had a mutual discussion, and we agreed that we would try to push for a technical senate ledger to be created instead. Because making a ledger with the accounts division is instantaneous, we asked for a meeting with the accounts division POC. However, unfortunately, we couldn't attend that meeting, and after that, we immediately left for our homes; so we tried reaching out by mail to Sir several times, but Sir has yet to respond. Once we reach campus, we will go and meet Sir, and we will discuss the matter of the creation of the ledger.
Anika: Now that you've mentioned the 60-40 split, we were informed that the tech senate and SU did not find common grounds with regards to profit sharing before atmos, as the MOU for the 60-40 cut was not signed, so what was your resolution to ensure they come to an agreement and how did you inspect the ensure situation?
Chris: I have spoken about this matter in depth to the technical secretary and the tech senate members as well, and we have spoken to the President and General Secretary as well, now both parties have their concerns, and both sides have valid arguments and reasonable concerns, the Tech senate requires funds for their expenditures. Otherwise, they can't survive, there will be no tech culture in our college, and the SUC also has a fair share of concerns as to how they will be able to conduct Pearl and the other fests without the profits, so we have tried suggesting to the SUC that for now, to try to discuss with the technical secretary and finalize/try to negotiate if the technical secretary is willing. So, as far as I am aware, the technical secretary has decided to go with a 60% profit cut, and since this is a constitutional requirement, there is no argument about what the SUC can do at this point. We have to ask SWD to transfer the letter to the accounts division to transfer the amount to the technical senate ledger or the technical senate account.
Anika: So you also mentioned that the opening balance got delayed because of discrepancy and missed losses, so can you tell what these discrepancies were about and in whose tenure and what fests these losses happened?
Chris: I am not certain about the figures per se, because when this data was given, the Accounts Division head, Sunita Ma'am, had held a meeting only with the President and I think the General Secretary, so CRC was not present in the meeting and only the President, General Secretary, Sunita Ma'am and I think one more POC from Accounts Division was present, I think SWD POC was also there in the meeting but we were not aware that such happened, the breakdown for all of the loses was something which is communicated to the President, the President was trying to sort this matter out by himself, so we are not aware of what discussions happened there and we don't know how much exactly the breakdown is, like for whose tenure this happened, but what we do understand is that last time, when covid happened, several bills were not submitted, because the bills were still with the students, even account divisions themselves were not attending the office because of covid, so even they were not functional properly, even the SWD was not properly functional, so there was a huge miscommunication, or a communication gap to be more precise, which led to several expenditures not being accounted for.
Anika: We have three fests: Arena, Pearl and VM. When reviewing the budget, how would you ensure SU minimizes the losses as much as they can from your side?
Chris: For the ATMOS budget, we didn't have much say because ATMOS is generally a profit-making fest; we needed the revenue from ATMOS to negate the losses which we had incurred to date, so we didn't pressure the SU; we thought that the SU might have properly planned it and they were confident as the President had assured us several times that he was confident about his figures and that even seven lakhs profit was a very conservative estimate, as he had stated in the GBM. So, we went ahead with his word, and after that, we did not know what happened and the profit loss statement of the fest. However, for the future fest, if the SUC is adamant about having its budget, we would not try to interfere with it and let the SUC carry out their plan. But we would like to inform the SWD and the Union that we have not ratified the budget. Ultimately, it is a loss for everyone, not just the SUC, CRC, or anyone else.
Areen: I just had one question, Chris; the formation of our batch of CRC was considerably delayed, and many of the previous CRC members were working pro-bono for a long time. Do you think that carried over to the later delays because the number crunching was not done in time?
Chris: Well, to be honest, I cannot speak on behalf of the previous CRC; they had their reasons for the delay because Orbe Novo was a big fest, by any scale, so they were busy with Orbe Novo accounts, and they had their logistical issues, as the SWD POC was on indefinite leave. I can't comment on the losses, at least the - 22 figure provided by the Accounts Division, which was entirely a part of an independent audit conducted by an independent auditor on the Institute. So, CRC had no role in finalizing that negative 22 lakhs, the opening balance, or anything like that.
Areen: And the opening balance was the main reason the fest budget was so delayed?
Chris: The opening balance, and even if the opening balance was not there, we had asked the President to submit a budget considering zero rupees contribution from SUF, still the budget was not submitted to us; you can say that it is the President's responsibility to submit the budget and it is on him, to have not submitted the budget.