The English Press Club interviewed Aaryaman Kalani and Divyansh Singh Aneriya of the Corroboration and Review Committee (CRC) to gain insight into their complaint against certain Union Council (UC) members regarding inventory maintenance to the Election Commission (EC).
Aaryaman started by saying that they had wanted to enforce inventory maintenance this year as per the procedure manual. He explained that during the fest, members of the UC had been assigned to check the inventory of clubs and departments and had to submit daily reports to the General Secretary. The CRC could then ask the General Secretary for these reports. He revealed that they had made the complaint to the EC because these checks had not been properly done. He explained that this was why the EC had suspended five members of the UC, and the General Secretary was relieved of his duty as the head of the Clearance Cell for FT2 transactions until December 2, 2024. He clarified that the General Secretary was not suspended, that is, he would still have his voting powers in case of any meets like the UC-GBM or review meets.
He emphasised the importance of routine inventory checks by giving a few examples. For instance, a club or department may need a certain amount of a particular item to which end they might present bills for the same. He added, however, that these bills can be easily faked. He stated that inventory checks ensure that the inventory brought in by clubs and departments match the bills presented. He further stated that because of these improper inventory checks conducted by some members of the UC and proper reports not being submitted, they could now not be sure if inventory mismanagement had occurred during the fest and if it had resulted in any financial loss, resulting in the Union being billed extra.
Aaryaman commented that the apology mail sent out during the Oasis Review Meet (ORM) by the General Secretary was just an effort to ‘save face’ for the UC. He exemplified this by saying that the General Secretary had mentioned that RecNAcc had 2000 mattresses as inventory. He agreed that it would’ve been difficult to check that, however RecNAcc wasn’t the only club or department whose inventory was not checked. He revealed that clubs like Gurukul and Music Club, which had less but expensive inventory, namely musical instruments, were not properly checked. He stated that it would’ve been easy to do so, but the UC just ‘brushed it aside’. He further added that even in his interview with the English Press Club, the General Secretary’s claim that he had ‘resolved the issue of the theft of Gaming Club’s inventory worth Rs. 75,000 by fining the culprits’ was another attempt to save face and provide a distraction from the real problem. He explained that after the recovery of inventory, the power and responsibility to fine the culprits lies solely with the CRC and the StuCCAn, Finance.
When asked about their stance on Sponz being relegated to a minor department, Aaryaman stated that Sponz has performed really well during this fest and although the CRC had no vote, they believed that it should not have become a minor department. He declared that although he agreed that the UC and ORC could vote whatever they wanted, his problem was that neither the UC nor the ORC had given any points against Sponz during ORM. He added that it was rather ‘suspicious’ and ‘unfair’ that they had no problems to bring up during the meet but just voted against the department.
On being asked why Sponz could not claim the sponsorship money, Divyansh explained that the StuCCAn of Sponz was the POC for the companies. Since he was not the StuCCAn anymore, he had neither the signatory power nor the incentive to claim the remaining sponsorship money. He elaborated that there were three to four steps involved between signing MOUs and claiming money, and that the StuCCAn was supposed to be the POC the whole time. He elucidated that now that there was no one holding the post of the StuCCAn of Sponz, there was no one who had the responsibilities that came with that post either. He added that they had not received any plan of action from the Union Council regarding how they would claim the sponsorship. He further stated that if any amount from the unclaimed sponsorship of Rs 35 Lakh was not brought in, it would be subtracted from the current projected profit of approximately Rs. 6 Lakh, and the fest would go into loss.
Aaryaman said that as a minor department, the amount of sponsorship brought in by Sponz would become lesser in future fests. He explained that this was because many companies invested in the fest because of deliverables such as the events conducted by various clubs on campus, and Sponz as a StuCCAn department could ask the clubs to conduct these events. However, he stated that now they had no power to do the same, which would affect the amount of sponsorships brought in.
When asked about the situation of the ledger after the fest, he said that there was no significant change because the Rs. 1950 charged to the GBM was to conduct the fest, and not to fix the ledger. He concluded by saying that they had a plan in mind to fix it, and that it would be explained during the UC-GBM meet, which is yet to be held this semester.