Dear Mr. Finance Minister

Sir,
I was listening to your budget speech and was not able to control myself from swearing out loud when you said that the Refund process is been made faster and simpler.
My wife is waiting for her Income Tax refunds of more than 5 assessment years. I have personally been following up with the department since more than 7 months now and have been able to get only refund till date.
This week I had the opportunity to sit with the Officer for more than 2 hours and the experience brought back memories of my travails over the past 7 months. The system is very clear. A person who comes asking for his refund the very first time is heard, his data checked and sent back saying that the refund will be released after a month. A person who comes back after a month is told that the refund should have come out by now, since it hasnt, it is better to put in a request in writing. On followup after giving the request in writing, the papers which are stored in “Bundles” are to be found. After one more visit to the Department, the Bundle is found, and the papers are found to be “Missing”. Next step is file an affidavit. Once the affidavit is filed, the person is again asked to come back after a week or so. During all these visits, I am not accounting the number of times the peon or the officer is not to be found on the table. Finally after a year the refund is released, if at all.
Btw…let me clarify, I am still to receive the refunds. The receipt of refund experience I am sharing of others.
Sir, you have not made e-filing mandatory for quick and easy refund. But even after e-filing the papers are still to be couriered to the Department in some place of our Country…as far as I know..to Bangalore.
These e-filing data’s are not “available” to the Income Tax officer for reasons best known to the department. My wifes last years returns are still not being shown on his computer, inspite of filing the returns electronically.
So all in all, some loophole is still there in the latest system also.
Yes I had the opportunity to visit an Higher Authority last week. He was very helpful. He has asked me to write a letter to the Department. So my saga continues………

Yours faithfully
A Citizen of India who is paying is Taxes so that your Department people can draw their salaries as per 6th Pay Commission

Jai Hind

Friends

Who are they?????

The one who holds your hand in a crowd, which is against you and says
“Tu tension mat let. Apun sambhal lenge sab”
The one who taps your back, when you are wrong and says
“I knew it, aise ghaple bus tu hi karr sakta hai”
The one who does everything for you, but then refuses to take thanks and says
“Abbe yeh formality ka natak mat karr”
The one who message you saying
“Abbe reply to karr”
The one who make you smil and stops your tears and himself starts crying and says
“Aankh me bhi abhi hi kachra girna tha, aur tu saale band karr ab apna ye Radio”

FRIENDS ------ Dont ever forget them :)

Transit camps in Mumbai

Mumbai is seeing a lot of Slum Redevelopment or chawl redevelopment. What the redevelopers are doing is building Transit Camps for the residents, breaking down their old houses, and constructing new buildings, before shifting them back to the new place.
However there is new trend nowadays…these transit camps are made of Iron girder framework and have cement sheets as walls. Not sure how safe they are. On top of it, these structures are going up as high as 7 storeys!!!!
Yesterday I saw one more such structure with shops on the ground floor. One of the shop was a Marble shop. I shudder to think what will happen if the load of Marbles fall on the side wall….will the cement sheet wall and iron girders be able to handle the weight of the marbles then or will the entire structure of seven storey fall down like a pack of cards. God only can save the people staying in transit there.

TV killed the Radio Star…….

This was once a very popular song. Come to think of it, over the years so many things have vanished. The VCR by CD player, which in turn by the DVD player, the rotary telephone by modern day push button phones, the CRT TV by LCD and LED, the type writer by computers. I have blogged about this before also. So why am I writing abut it again???

Simply because I am missing out on Emails from friends and family. I miss the attachments in emails, the jokes, the pictures, the news from them. No my friends and family are not busy…..but they are doing the same thing on social networking sites. I am kept updated by them over there. So there you are……Social networking is slowly killing the Email…………

Dont know if I am writing about it a bit early….but I feel I will be missing out on emails soon………….

She’s got the look!!!!

On Sunday, my daughter wanted to sit on the rides outside the restaurant where we had gone to have food. Now there was a small girl sitting on a ride which was inactive. No one was with her. I was looking around for her parents. Saw a female in all finery trying to avoid my gaze. After a few minutes she came ahead and instead of starting the ride or picking up her kid, she started combing her kids hair while the kid was sitting on the ride, inspite of seeing that I am losing my patience. In the end I had to request her to shift her kid to another ride…but not before I saw a look of ‘disgust’ on her face. Seriously the look got my mind thinking.My wifey was laughing at my experience, saying that this is norm with certain mothers and kids everywhere. Unless you dont open your mouth, they dont even remove their kids for others to use the rides.
Some mothers always tend to turn a blind eye. Inspite of their kids crying reaching the ears of every other person in the vicinity, surprising they lose their hearing capabilites while the howling is going on. And when finally they see that no other person is coming forward to quiten the kid, one should see the “Look” on their faces, when they have to drop the current gossip and go and attend their kids.
Then there are mothers, who “break” the queue. They will just walk ahead of the queue, start chatting with their family member/friend who is already in the queue, and next you will find that they have secured their place in the queue. I have seen this a lot many times in gardens, in school fees queues. Best is the school fee queue, mothers will come up to a mom already in the queue, ask about her kids acadamics, and then oh, i forgot to pay my kids fees too…..why dont you take this cash and pay my kids fees too!!!!!! Very rarely I have seen other moms object. Maybe they do the same thats why. But when anybody does object…..one gets to see the “look”……….
Mothers in finery,best dresses, best sarees, and the tiny tot comes running and is responsible for a crease which can only be seen by its mothers eyes….one gets to see the “look”:))))))
Any other observations are welcome;)