The INSEAD experience was coming to an end. I graduated happily on 7th July and was excited about returning to my home country – India. I was going to join as a consultant in the Middle East on 1st September. Hence, as required by the UAE government, I had to turn in my attested degree certificate to my employer. They could then start initiating the process to issue me a work permit for the Middle East. My tickets to India were booked for the 8th and my MBA certificate did not have the name of the issuing country on it. Hence, I thought it would be much easier to get my under-graduation certificate attested back in India. After all I am a citizen of India, so they would respect my B.Tech certificate from the premier institute of India! How very ignorant I was about Indian bureaucratic systems!
Before leaving Singapore, I had called up the UAE embassy in India to understand the process for attesting my B.Tech certificate. It was a straight forward three step process –
1. Attest it from the Education department of the state from where my B.Tech certificate was issued. In my case from the education ministry in Dehradun.
2. Attest it from the Ministry of External affairs in New Delhi
3. Attest it from the UAE embassy in New Delhi
Hmm…it did seem like it would consume three days of mine, one day for each step. Could I outsource it? I enquired around and discovered Urogulf. They made claims about their expertise in this area and they were recommended to me by a friend who had used their services. Unfortunately Urogulf was not equipped with the resources to do the attestation for IIT Roorkee certificates. So I lost a week in trying to send my documents to them and retrieving my documents from the courier service without managing to lose my original certificate.
It was already 16th of July when I finally got back my certificate from the courier service. So I decided to go in person to complete the process mentioned above. I had to submit the attested certificate (by UAE embassy) before end of month July.
No time to lose, I booked myself on the flight to Delhi on Sunday, i.e. 18th and then on the night train to Dehradun the same day. This was the first of many sleepless nights to follow. So I arrived in Dehradun on 19th early morning. The auto ride to a motel was refreshing; I was reminded of all the good times spent in Dun when I was in Roorkee. 9.30 am by my clock, I was at the Sachiwalaya or Secretariat gate of Dehradun trying to make a pass to enter the Secretariat. “Come back at 12.30”, oops there goes my first day, never mind I still have the afternoon to get my certificate attested from the education ministry. However, after a bit of waiting around, an old man offered his services. He got my pass made and I headed with him towards the concerned department. Apparently the General Administration department was responsible for this attestation.
“Madam, there is a set process, it is online, you will first have to go to the District Magistrate (DM) office in Baharadarabd in Haridwar”. I was stunned, no one had told me about this! I felt like a fool, had I missed out on some important information? Apparently I did, the DM office had a website that had mentioned all the steps which I had overlooked. My fault, ok, I took the address of the DM office. So I should go immediately to the DM office in Bahadarabad and meet the ADM (Assistant DM), a two hour drive from Dehradun. Roorkee falls within Haridwar district, hence I had to go to the ADM of Haridwar.
Anyone who has taken that drive; would be aware of the rash driving along that road. Never mind, there was no time to wait for trains. So I booked a taxi and set off to Bahadarabad. It was pouring and there were no signs of a DM’s office in Bahadarabad. I finally asked the driver to park by a police post. I stepped out of the car to talk to the policemen guarding or should I say just standing and chatting there. “There is no DM office in Bahadarabad, there is one in Roshanabad, go there. Where are you from..” All those scary questions from the police which make you feel unsafe in their presence. I took off from there as soon as possible. Back in the cab, I called 100, the police helpline to find the number and exact address of the DM office.
This was just the beginning of the ordeal. The DM office appeared to me like a Ghetto for the criminals, as I walked in, people stared at me, you know that look. The office was in the middle of nowhere. There was no way to get out of that place, no public transport and no sane cab driver would drive down to Roshanabad which was on the outskirts of Haridwar to pick me. ADM sir was “resting”, it was 2pm then. Seems they rest everyday after lunch, irrespective of the urgency of the matter. I saw a long waiting period ahead of me. The assistant to ADM, a kind man told me that they would send a photocopy of my original certificate and a request letter to IIT Roorkee for verification. What!! Why was that, because my certificate might have been a forged one! I realized for the first time in my life that the B.Tech certificate from Indian Institute of Technology held no value. Can you believe that? Yes, I had to accept that. The more disgusting piece of information was that the documents would be send by post to Roorkee. When I enquired how long would the process take, there was silence and then some rude remarks directed towards me.
Time was running out fast. I could not wait endlessly, besides I had no place to stay in Haridwar or even Dehradun. So I requested the person preparing the letter to allow me to carry a sealed envelope to Roorkee. On persuasion, he threw the papers back at me, shouting at me for trying to act smart. He refused to even prepare the letter now. “Go, get the ADMs permission”. So I tried taking an appointment with the ADM. He refused straight away. I waited and was persistent, from 2pm until 4pm I waited and watched, seated on a broken wooden chair with a bunch of crooked looking men. My cab driver in the mean time was getting restless, I was supposed to release him long back but I did not dare to. So I paid him to hang around for some more time. In the mean time, I had called a friend of mine to urgently come down to Haridwar, as it was getting unsafe for me. My patience paid off, I was allowed to meet ADM SIR! He had that attitude in his voice, “you should have come earlier, you know this is a process”. Huh, no one around knows how long the process takes, and you say it’s a defined process?? My requests were turned down, but I did manage to get the letter typed at the ADMs direction. Thank you ADM sir!!
One task done, but how do I take the letter with the photocopy to Roorkee as soon as possible. I was fortunate to be able to get hold of a temporary employee who agreed to ride in the car with me to Roorkee with the letter and ride back to DM office with the letter. Roorkee would not allow me to take the letter back to Roshanabad by hand. It was 5pm by my watch, people were packing their bags, this already deserted place was looking scarier. So I asked the employee to walk out to the main entrance with the documents in an envelope. I paid my cab driver and stood there in the middle of nowhere with my bag packed for 3 days. I waited for another half an hour, before my friend arrived. I felt for the first time in the day, I was safe, away from those bureaucrats.
We drove down to Roorkee, another hour and had to wait until 10am the next morning. What happened in Roorkee is history! I expected the process in Roorkee to be smooth and quick. I was in for the biggest surprise that really hurt me. The assistants to the Assistant Registrar who was the authority to sign the photocopy of the certificate refused to even attend to me before the 26th of July. To remind you, it was 21st July that day. All they had to do was to look up my name in the Roorkee database and send the photocopy to the Assistant Registrar for his signature. They had all the time to talk about food and marriages, as I overheard them but they did not have the time to look into the computer! And the Assistant Registrar was on leave for the last two days. No one knew when he would be back. Is he not supposed to have assigned some other authority to look into day to day matters? I fail to appreciate this system in the premier institution of the country. Tears and money helped me but I was humiliated that day in front of seven people staring at me in the Academic department of IIT Roorkee. The same employee whom we had given a lift from DM office, who carried and submitted my envelope in Roorkee found a chap from his village in the department. Only because of that contact, my certificate was verified.
We raced back to Roshanabad to the DM office with the employee from that office. I could again forge the signature or the photocopy, so I was not allowed to touch that envelope! Wasn’t it now a straight forward step? The ADM should just attest the original certificate which I was carrying with me. But, they made me wait until the end of the day from 1pm. Finally, the “babu” read officer who was supposed to pack the letter in an envelope and courier it to Dehradun (remember, it all started there!) had to be bribed. There was no way I would wait for them to send the original certificate by post to Dehradun. Neither did I trust their postal services or the people in Dehradun who would collect the document. I have no idea, where is it written in the constitution that at this stage the certificate cannot be handed over to the candidate? So at 6pm, I was honoured to receive ADMs signature on the certificate, there was some transfer of money at the “babu” level. I thanked the employee who had been with us in our Roorkee adventure, he is a good man. I felt sad to hear how DMs and ADMs who have lavish bungalows, maids to look after house chores and government cars as perks are also corrupted. How they demand for huge amounts when it comes to filling up posts. If anybody reading this works in the government, could you explain this to me please??
Another 2 hour drive to Dehradun and a overnight wait until the gates of the Sachiwalaya opened. Nothing happens before 2pm in these offices. I had asked my friend to drop me there and take off, as he had already missed two days of work. I sat in the waiting room with my travel bag and files. I waited, tired and hungry. I walked up to the first floor where I had submitted my original certificate from Dehradun to be again attested by the Uttaranchal government. I stood there for hours in front of the “General Administration” department. People walking down the corridors stared at me, they never fail to do so when they see a woman trying to get her work done in state government offices. Finally around 4pm, the head of that room called me in to explain the situation. Those were the first kind words I had heard since I started off on 18th. The delay was caused by the unavailability of that mysterious person who was supposed to attest my certificate. I asked him where on their website was the process described as was told to me the first day in Sachiwalaya. “It is not available online, could you please spread the word about the process to your juniors in IIT Roorkee”. So I was not a fool, I had not missed any information. I was just being misled. Now I think, how many times throughout those three days was I being misled? How many times they got money out of me for no reason at all?
I was called back at 4.30pm. I waited, it was now 5.30pm, once again people around me were calling it a day. I was getting impatient; I had already missed a train back to Delhi, now I had another train that night. But I was helpless, all I could do was wait and keep peeking into the room to see if the file that contained my document had arrived. At 6pm, I was called in. The attested certificate was handed to me and there was once again a transfer of a small coupon amount compared to what I had paid in the DM office.
I felt I had made “Mission Impossible” possible, as I walked out of the Sachiwalaya with my belongings! Was it real, had I made it in reality? I knew the attestation from MEA and UAE embassy were to be done, but those were well defined processes described online. And they did go very smoothly. I had to do nothing but to drop my documents at the counter in the morning at both these places and collect them back at the assigned time. When you have seen such anarchy at the state level, you are awed by the great work done by the Central Government. Whatever, the ordeal was over in five days. However, I hope systems are modified to reduce the number of steps and the uncertainty. Having a database of names of students graduating from the institutions in that state does not appear to be an unachievable feat. May be when we have a social security number 15 years from now, our children would find it easier to develop their careers in India and abroad!
