Just Ask

We have this trust in the institute that handles a lot of funds received as grants, donations, and fees for conferences. It cuts 10% as processing fee, though it is a bit difficult to understand why 10% amount is required for that purpose. This difficulty is justified by the fact that they keep sending letters to a number of departments, offering grants of a few thousand INR every year for purchasing anything that the administration does not or cannot or will not provide. This year they sent us a letter of offer, but stated that some money was available, instead of specifying how much money was actually offered. They wanted us to send a list in the order of our priority, with justification for each item. It would be a lot of work to work out the cost of all the things we required. That work would be wasted if the amount offered was not adequate. So I wrote back, asking how much money was likely to be offered. They wrote back, saying there was no actual limit on the amount to be offered. We were to give a comprehensive list. So I called a meeting, brainstormed with all of our staff members, decided the items we needed and their priority order. Then we all spent a few days finding out the cost of the things in our wish list. Finally I informed the trust that we needed a MRI/USG guided focused ultrasonic myolysis unit, three pulse oximeters, assisted reproduction set up (500000), a CO2 incubator, 2 colposcopes, a laminar flow unit, an ELISA reader, a unit and reagents for HPV testing, and an LCD projector, the net cost being about 90000000 INR. It would drop to 30000000 INR if they gave USG guided unit instead of MRI guided unit. A month passed. Then I received a letter from the trust that they would give us 30000 INR for the purchase of an LCD projector. If the cost exceeded this amount, we had to bear the extra expense ourselves. “When we worked hard and generated a list of items and their cost of about Rs. 90000000 INR, the trust has offered us 30000 INR only” I informed the staff members in our next meeting. “If the cost exceeds that amount, we have to pay that extra expense ourselves.” They all laughed. “Could they not tell us in advance how much they would offer? It would have saved so much time and effort” one Professor said. “They are like a government, run by bureaucrats with an attitude” said another Professor. “They want us to slog to prove our worthiness to receive this princely grant” offered an Associate Professor. “We had the option of ignoring their first letter” I pointed out. “We were fools to fall for the trick they played. Fools get what they deserve.” I could read in their faces that they knew we were not fools except in the eyes of the trustees.