The adventure of getting Income Tax Refund

For past couple of months I am having adventure of trying to get refund for A.Y.2004-2005. Though not a big amount (a small way up in four figures) when compared to many others' whose grievances I came across via simple net search.

Pune Income Tax office records show that refund order has been sent almost one and half year back, perhaps it has got lost in post somewhere. Seems a sure possibility because when I had a chance to look at the record copy of relevant document, it indicated some issue with dot matrix printer used for printing the address (perhaps some pins not firing or bad ribbon), as the pincode was not clearly printed in the record copy and address was bit mauled - state happened to have got changed there. No wonder I didn't receive the refund order sent by post.

I am looking forward to the day when refunding of income tax directly to taxpayer's account gets actually implemented all over India. It is not much of hassles to an account alive for an year or so for collecting the refund from IT department, than taking rounds of ITO in vain. Moreever it will reduce some fuelling to corruption. Often people have to part with 10-15% (even more in some cases) as commission normally to receive the refunds.

The current procedure for asking for a refund that has got missed out for whatsoever reasons, involved a process of indemnity bond on Rs. 100 stamp paper and xerox of some documents. Since stamp papers are out these days, one has to go for franking and then paying 100-150 Rs. to notary for doing his bit. Not many banks provide franking services and that too is limited to certain branch(es) in city.

I wish if procedure for claiming refund against missed-in-post/lost/expired-date refund orders could be made simpler. Just an application on plain paper or filling up an online form with relevant details.

Atleast income tax department could put information on it's site about - what should a person do in each case, the documents required to be submitted with application, franking/stamp-paper value for indemnity bond, whom should the application be addressed to, better still if formats of these applications also put on site that people can use by filling in the the factual information as per their case. As my experience has been, it takes quite some energy to figure out what, how etc. related to such kind of issues from local income tax office, especially when you are not conversant with the local language.

In case someone related with income tax department or responsible for information on their site, is reading this. Can you look into above request?