KritiKal shining..

The year has been great for our sister firm, KritiKal SecureScan, which is making news everywhere.

In February we won the NASSCOM Innovation award for the year 2008 (related news here). It was a moment of pride for the entire team of VehiScan as well as for the KritiKal family. I have spent more than two years on this product so it was a special feeling for me to be awarded for my efforts.

Then CNBC TV 18 covered our company in their series "Young Turks Innovators" which was our first media coverage on television. (Youtube video). The video shooting team of CNBC was at our site in IIT and also came to our office in Noida. It was in fact funny the way they were shooting the entire video but when I saw the video I was highly impressed by those people.

And today there is an article on rediff.com. (click here)

KritiKal rocks !!

Income Tax benefits of EMI on houses under construction

Let me first explain the scenario before actually getting into the details of the procedure. You have bought a house. You took home loan for that and every month you pay an EMI towards repayment of that loan. The house is still under construction so you do not have the possession letter for that house. In your EMI, there are two components - Interest and Principal. In the early stages of repayment, the interest part is huge and the principal part is very less. You can avail tax benefits on both the components separately. There is an upper cap of 1 lacs for the principal component and another slab of 1.5 lacs for the interest component. The catch is that for the interest component, you need to have the possession of the house before you could avail any benefit on the interest paid.

Now the problem statement: How do we get the benefit on this huge amount of interest that we are paying every year when we do not have the possession of the house.

Solution 1: WAIT till you get the possession of the house. Suppose you started your EMIs in August, 2008 and you get the possession of the house in January, 2012. That means for the year 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 you could not avail any tax benefit on the interest component while in 2012 you would get a benefit on a maximum of 1.5 lac towards interest of your EMI.

Do this:

Add the interest paid by you all these years, i.e. Interest in 2008 + Interest in 2009 + Interest in 2010 + Interest in 2011.
Say the total Interest comes to I
Now divide this into 5 equal parts -> I/5 = I_part

According to the rule books, you can avail income tax benefit on this whole amount of I_part for 5 consecutive years since the year of possession, over and above the 1.5 lac slab for your interest component for the current financial year.

Hence in year 2012, you get full benefit on I_part + benefit on a maximum of 1.5 lacs for the interest paid in 2012.

And the same continues for the year 2013,2014,2015,2016

Solution 2: Consult a lawyer. Usually the CAs do not allow anyone to avail any benefit on the interest part without having the possession of the house. They do so because they are not supposed to break or even bend the rules that have been set by our government. In such a case, the lawyers have a different opinion. They say that when you are paying so heavily without even having the possession of the house, then why should you not get the benefit. (it actually makes sense too) The rule needs to be modified. And they have their own legal ways in which they get the refunds for you while filing your IT returns for that financial calendar. You just have to provide them your Form 16 and the total interest you have paid (and other related documents and stats as asked by the lawyers).

The first solution is obviously better since you get the benefit on the entire amount instead of a cap of 1.5 lacs. But it takes time. So if you are under a financial crunch, get a lawyer to file your IT returns rather than your accountant doing so for you. The lawyer will obviously charge you for that, but then he is also on a job, no social work :P

I opted to wait :)

The Smiling Moon

I was in IIT Delhi on 1st December evening preparing for a very important demo scheduled for the next day. And as I looked up in the sky to see how dark it had already become before 6, I noticed this awesome event, a gesture by the mother nature. The moon had a very thin crescent and just above it were two planets (Jupiter and Venus) at two corners of the crescent. The three heavenly bodies made a figure which we call a "smiley" :). I loved the view and wanted to reach home as soon as possible so that I could capture this moment forever. Unfortunately, till the time I reached home, the sky was already filled with fog and the trio was nowhere to be seen. I was very disappointed.

Today when I came home, the crescent of the moon had grown in these two days and the planets were still visible. Only the planets were lying somewhere else and the moon was stationed somewhere else. Suddenly an idea struck me. I thought of taking the pictures of both the planets and the moon and then aligning them in GIMP to get a picture similar to the smiling moon which happened just a couple of days ago. And I did exactly that :) Captured the moon and the planets with the same camera settings and then placed everything (had to scale down the planets photo) to get what I was desperate to capture since the time I witnessed it. Wallaah !! I did it :) Though, it would be termed fake and I would have to live with it :(, yet I have the satisfaction that by hook or by crook, I did make the moon smile once again.

Yellow dew

For more photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/abeerarts/

Tree plantation drive

A few KritiKal-ites had volunteered for the tree plantation drive which was organized by a social organization named “Kalpavriksha” in Mayur Vihar phase 1 at Sahyog Apartment park on 20th September. All of us had to assemble at the Sahyog Apartments at 8am. Prachi had come all the way from Lajpat Nagar, Delhi. The remaining of us (Meetu, Rana, Madan and I) were in Noida from different sectors. Madan had come to my house in sector 15 at 7am from where we decided to walk till the venue. We had entered Mayur Vihar by 7:30 but it took us half an hour to locate where exactly was Sahyog Apartments. Even the rikshaw pullers had not heard the name. I called up Prof. Prabhakar Rao and he asked me to locate Supreme Apartments and the venue was just in front of it. To my relief, people did know Supreme Apartments and one man who was on his morning walk guided us well. Madan and I finally reached there by 8:10 am. Prachi and Pradipta had already reached there. Rana was on his way and Meetu had already notified us that she would be late since she had another meeting to attend in the morning. There were a couple of more people till then. Later many more kept joining us from time to time.

There were around 50 shrubs and trees which we planted together. It was a great experience. So many strange faces around and all of us working together for a good cause. Pradipta had hurt himself while digging and was bleeding but his enthusiasm had overpowered everything else. He applied the soil on the wound and just carried on with the job. A very old lady (70+) who was there for her morning walk kept asking us if she could help us in anyway. In-fact everyone around there seemed to be motivated by the sight of people planting trees all over, covered in mud and soil. It was funny how Prachi attended a phone call. She took out her handkerchief, wrapped it on her hands and then tried pulling out her cellphone from the pocket :) Everyone gathered after planting all the trees. I was really surprised to know it was 10:30. I never realized I had spent more than 2 hours there. Finally Professor Rao thanked everyone for turning up and we thanked him for giving us such an opportunity and also asked him to let us know of any such future events as well. Then we had a brief introduction session and then finally all of us dispersed.

Pradipta took leave and the remaining of us (Meetu, Prachi, Rana and I) headed for Guruvayurappan Temple. Its a beautiful temple maintained by the local Tamilians there. The actual motivation behind visiting the temple was the food stall outside the temple. All of us were hungry and we thought that its some kind of a “langar” where they were distributing “wada and dosa”. But Meetu, Prachi and Rana suggested that we first visit the temple and then eat something. So all of us went to the temple, prayed for a while and came out. The food stall was no “langar” but that did not deter us from attacking at the stall. All of us ate like we had not eaten in ages :) And the food was too good. Madan himself being a south indian testified that it was one of the best south indian food he had eaten in a long time.

It was a very tiring but a satisfying exercise for all of us. I finally reached home at 11:45 am, took a bath and slept till late afternoon. The experience was great, though I am not that good at words to express what it was like. I had a great time and I look forward to getting more such opportunities in future.

Change your point of view

Wrote this long back ...

Yet another day gone
As the same thoughts passed by,
Does HE even care for me ?
I had a thousand reasons to cry.

Walked past a noisy traffic,
Tired I was like hell !!
How long will I have to wait for the bus ?
I wish if some one could tell.

The bus did come and I pushed myself in.
Packed till the eyes could see
Just then I locked eyes with a man,
Smiling so broadly at me.

Was there really something so amusing ?
I was finding that gesture too rude ..
Was he laughing at my misery or had we ever met before ?
That's all a negative mind could conclude

"Ohh GOD !! was I going to curse this man ?"
As if the sky fell on my head !!
He had taught me an important lesson,
With not a single word said.

On one end there was me, STANDING
Frowning for having no seat.
And on the other end was this man, SEATED
Though to stand, he had no feet !!

There were a hundred new thoughts,
Now running through my mind.
How wrong I was to call HIM rude,
When actually to me, HE had been so kind.

With so much pain all around,
Yet people manage to smile.
Is there really a scope for complaints,
Even if I had to walk a mile ?

So next time on a rough day,
When life comes hard on you.
You'll still have plenty to smile about,
Just change your point of view.

~Piyush.