On October 6, 2024, the Students’ Union (SU) sent out an e-mail informing the General Body Members (GBM) of the temporary closure of the StudyDeck app due to unexpected server costs. To gather insight on the same, as well as the duties of the StuCCAn, Finance, the English Press Club sat down with the President of the Union, Ahan Bansal.
Before elaborating on the closure of the StudyDeck app, Ahan wished to discuss the current state of the SU finances and ledgers. Ahan started by explaining how abrupt the transfer of power had been for him. He said that despite his experience as a member of the SU Executive Committee, he had been unable to understand the state of the management of the internal finances of the SU. He mentioned having to spend long hours in the SU office during the mid-semester exams, precisely due to this dire situation.
Ahan stated that the majority of Oasis logistics had been decided before he assumed responsibilities. He added that the short period of time to the fest, further made it difficult to understand the events being hosted and appropriate budget allocation.
The central problem, according to Ahan, was that the Students’ Union is not a legal entity and thus, does not have its own bank account. All finances are processed indirectly through the Accounts office, and maintained on the students’ end in the form of three ledgers — the SU, the APOGEE, and the Oasis ledgers. He explained that the first two were in a deficit of INR 8,63,996 and INR 98,06,565 respectively, while the third had a surplus of INR 11,39,906 at the time of the interview. Ahan stated that due to this deficit, the Accounts Office had blocked further payments, including the reimbursement requests from the past editions of the two fests, despite the Union Council (UC) having processed them.
He went on to shed more light on the inner workings of fests. He started by saying that every fest has some amount of fixed costs and variable costs, and a variable revenue. He added that the largest amount is spent on professional shows, whose costs could be divided into artists’ fee, hospitality, and production. He described artist’s fee as the advance payment for hiring an artist, and production costs as the cost of setting up a functioning stage in South Park. Ahan added that the diesel fueled generators that powered the stage further drove up the costs, particularly during drawn-out sound checks. Ahan also alleged that the brand specifications demanded by the agencies were simply industry practices to earn more money by virtue of exclusivity agreements. He stated that hospitality requirements, such as travel and security arrangements, accommodation, and refreshments all added to the cost.
Ahan said that there was a pending reimbursement of around INR 53 lakh since the last edition of APOGEE, due to which payments for reimbursements had been blocked by the Accounts office. He added that the office desired a concrete plan on how the money in deficit would be returned to the institute. He revealed that the office had emailed the UC, informing them that the fest would not proceed until the dues were cleared — asking the GBM to bear these costs. He explained that the UC had been trying to stave this situation off since last year, until ultimately the payments got blocked.
Ahan continued by elaborating on the ‘vicious cycle’ of funding a fest. A fest functions on advance payments from the students which are reimbursed later. Some of the hired vendors work with direct cash and do not accept credit. The SU works with these vendors using their personal bank accounts and an ‘SU cash account’, consisting of the payments made by outstation participants in cash which are then deposited into a member’s account. This is used to make payments which cannot be deferred, such as paying the venues and judges for the preliminary rounds of Rocktaves — an event conducted by ARBITS which starts months before the fest — and has limited funds. He explained it as a ‘vicious cycle’ for the students involved, as clubs consist of common members through the years, the lack of reimbursements leads to people not being willing to pay for the next fest, resulting in a lack of funds for the upcoming fests. Ahan explained that sponsorship was acquired based on footfall. As there was limited space for hosting outstation participants, it could not be increased, limiting the funds further.
Speaking about the state of Oasis ’24, Ahan emphasised on the fact that the SU was dependent on the institute for financing. He provided an example by showing that the travel budget was projected to increase by 30-40% if the institute did not provide an advance, owing to increased flight tickets. With the artist fee being between INR 50-60 lakh, INR 25-30 lakh for production, INR 5-6 lakh for opening artists, and hospitality costs, the current surplus in the Oasis ledger, despite the fest deductions would be exhausted, he added.
Ahan was then joined by Aryan Khorana, the SU General Secretary, who explained that with this tight a budget, even a two percent increase in the fee would cause the fest to collapse. Aryan also claimed that as the payments by sponsors were made after the fest, the on-hand funds available to them were ultimately limited.
Aryan stated that as of Oct 16, 2024, the current office-holders would only have completed a month in office. He requested the GBM to allow them scope for error, considering that they were arranging a fest of INR two crores for the first time. They added that while the institute claimed that the fest costs were ballooning, they failed to consider the causes — the increased student intake and the post-COVID eight percent inflation. Aryan expressed his frustration with the administration, explaining that the college charged the students for booking rooms and equipment belonging to the college itself, intrinsically increasing costs.
Ahan added that other colleges shelled out money for their students and their fests. Aryan chimed in with a relevant example — for a certain institute in close proximity, the institute paid INR 10 lakh out of the INR 20-25 lakh budget for the fest. Ahan also talked about the fests in the preceding years, citing the example of Oasis 2014; when the SU President received e-mails from organisations such as the Indian Air Force Squadron, requesting the college to allow them to conduct an event during the fest. Aryan added how he, as the Secretary, received e-mails almost daily, inviting them as representatives to fests purely based on the ‘face value’ BITS Pilani held as a college. He commented that ‘In spite of this, if we face these monetary problems, some questions need to be raised.’
He further went on to explain that there were more factors that supposedly eat up their funds, especially because most events go into losses and a lot of clubs still need money despite said losses. Ahan recited that this has now become extremely difficult due to insufficient funds, considering that the number of clubs on campus has seemingly doubled since 2014. He detailed that the CRC and the previous UC had come up with a contingency plan as a solution for this problem, but it had not been acted upon yet. The said contingency plan detailed fee for the usage of the SU app for eateries and an increase in the Union membership fee.
When asked to comment about the SU and StudyDeck apps, Ahan expressed that the reimbursements were still pending, and since people had passed out, the payments had been blocked. He further went on to explain that some money had been saved and kept aside for the fest events for non-GST bills, and that the AWS payments were started by one of the former Presidents out of his own pocket, and then by a Corroboration and Review Committee (CRC) member, with figures touching up to almost INR 60,000 per month. He elaborated that the direct bill from AWS, and StudyDeck from this month alone was INR 1.5 lakh and that he was unsure at the moment on how to proceed with this payment.
When asked for a solution to the StudyDeck problem, Ahan mentioned that he had yet to receive the exact report but that they had found a more economical server that could be a potential solution. He called the current system unsustainable, as evidenced by their inability to pay the outstanding 1.5 lakh bill.
Ahan and Aryan concluded by saying that being the President and General Secretary costs money, and that sometimes, not all costs can be reimbursed and made it a point to remind the GBM that their money is still tied up in repaying the dues. They also sympathised with the food vendors, and expressed difficulty in convincing them that they’d be reimbursed soon. They revealed that they’d be meeting with the Director soon to discuss the accounts and methods to ensure that Oasis doesn’t cause a loss.