The Chronicles of the Meet: SMC and The Chief Warden

Written on February 20th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}

In response to the complaints over the mess management over the past few days, members of the Student Mess Council organized a meeting between the SMC, the Managers of Mess 1 and Mess 2 and the administration represented by Dr. CP Kiran, the Chief Warden on the 20th of February 2020. A representative from the Student’s Welfare Division and two representatives from Journal Club were invited to the meet as well. The SMC said that roughly ten such meetings with the admin were organised over this academic year to discuss various mess related issues. 

The meeting had three major sections:

  1. Complaints over Mess 2
  2. Complaints over Mess 1
  3. General Issues

Mess 2 Complaints

The primary complaint against Mess 2 was the issue of feathers being found in the chicken dishes served on Sunday (16/02) and Wednesday (19/02). The meeting began with an apology and an explanation from the manager of Mess 2 about the process of preparing their chicken dishes wherein the pre-cut pre-washed meat is weighed, washed again by the mess before preparation. He stated that the vendor of the meat was called after the first incident and the cleaning process was done in his presence. The Manager went on to say that the matter was an issue with the stock the vendor provided and that they have spoken to them regarding the same. A point learnt during the meet was that the vendor supplying chicken was the same for both messes. The actions suggested during the meet were as follows:

  1. As an intermediary step, Dr. C P Kiran suggested that three volunteers from the GB be sent to oversee the entire process of chicken preparation in Mess 2 on Sunday. Three members from the SMC volunteered to form this team and will be present in mess 2 through Sunday to oversee this.
  2. The Mess 2 manager suggested that the chicken can be lab-checked if required.
  3. While the Chief Warden did say that there would be a financial penalty for the negligence - the exact details of the same were to be decided at an administration meeting which was scheduled later on the day. This meeting would take place between Dr. C P Kiran and Dr. Niranjan Swain. Two ideas were floated with respect to the financial penalty:
    1. There would be a blanket financial penalty for Mess 2.
    2. The General Body Deductions for that meal would be cancelled.

The second complaint with respect to Mess 2 brought up was with respect to an allegation that a mess personnel attempted to coerce a student into deleting the post about the feather found in the Sunday Chicken Biriyani. The Chief Warden said that this issue would not be taken lightly and that it would be investigated severely. The Chief Warden reiterated the GB’s right to complain about the food and said that very severe action against Mess 2 would be taken if the claim was found to be accurate. 

Mess 1 Complaints

The complaints over the issues with Mess 1 were brought up next. First up, the issue about the impromptu changes in the menu of Mess 1 was brought up. The SMC did accept that there was some miscommunication between all parties over the sudden changes in the menu and accepted fault over the same. The Mess Manager also brought up the fact that certain items on the menu created certain extenuating circumstances that forced a menu change (for example, Dosa on Friday’s special dinner was incompatible with serving Idly on Friday’s snacks). 

A member of the Journal Club subsequently pointed out that changes to the menu this year were more often than the last few years. The Chief Warden asked the SMC to keep track of the number of times a menu change happened due to the mess’ fault and that multiple such incidents would lead to fines. However, the Chief Warden did also say that in the case of non-availability of certain items - the mess should put up a notice of the same corroborated by the SMC well in advance. He emphasized that this rule would not be hard and fast and that menus would be created in a fair manner for all parties and asked the mess managers to ensure that they are able to deliver on the new mess menu consistently even in summer months, where scarcities of certain vegetables are likely.  A member of the SMC said that a new menu would be created soon, probably next week, and promised that issues related to miscommunication would not happen again.

Secondly, the issue of a nail stuck in an aloo tikki and a serving of bhel according to a complaint in January was taken very seriously by the Chief Warden. The issue of a stone in a serving of chole was also brought up. The Chief Warden stated that this was clearly an issue of major negligence by the Mess and that he would bring this up with the Dean - Administration and call for major consequences. 

General Issues

  1. Mess Maintenance: The SMC stated that two aspects of Mess 1 needed maintenance: the water coolers and the washrooms near the entrance of the mess. The SMC stated that despite multiple mails to the GAD and Maintenance over calling for plumbers (to fix the taps) and placement of mats on the floors, they hadn’t received a response. The Chief Warden stated that they should ask the faculty members incharge of the Mess (Dr. Sounak Roy and Dr. Omkar) to send the mails on their behalf, as faculty sending the mail might be more useful and effective.</p>

    The second aspect of the Mess that was discussed was the state of the washrooms near the Mess 1 entrance, which are currently unusable. They stated that while they tried mailing the maintenance and even had a meeting with them and Dr. Sandip S Deshmukh regarding the same, the issue is yet to be solved. The Chief Warden said that a meeting would be held with the concerned parties, including the Estate Manager.</li> </ol>

    1. Notices about fines levied on the mess: The SMC requested that the notices about the amount and/or compensation with respect to mess complaints be either informed by the SMC calling for a General Body Meeting with the administration and the Mess Managers (or) an official Mail sent by the Administration or SWD. The SMC claimed this would assure the GB of the legitimacy of the process and also make it clear that the process of fining a Mess is performed entirely by the administration. The Chief Warden stated that an official notice would be created for the same.

    1. 2020 Batch Intake: As the campus size would be increasing from next batch, it was agreed upon that Mess 2 would have to directly compete with Mess 1 as the number of slots in Mess 2 would also be increased. While the SMC did propose the creation of a third Mess - the Chief Warden said that the idea would not be necessary until 2022. He also stated that the creation of a third mess as an asset would be an arduous task that would take a long period of time. The Chief Warden aired an idea of each student choosing a mess slot time for entering into the mess for lunch to ensure that a steady flow into the mess during lunchtimes. This is to ensure that the capacity of the mess endures with the increased intake. This would only have to be implemented for lunch, since that's when the mess gets most crowded. However, none of these proposed ideas have been finalized and there are various other alternatives that are being considered.

    1. Caterers: In response to the issues of the General Body, the Chief Warden stated that it is not easy to change caterers. He stated that the current caterers are very well established in IITs across the country and that new caterers would take a lot of time to settle into campus. He also said that it is a huge challenge to get issues of punctuality and consistent quality solved with new caterers and that they would not take any caterer who didn’t display adequate competence to handle the challenges of managing a mess.

    1. General Body Complaints: In response to the General Body complaints against the SMC, the Chief Warden stated that the role of the SMC is to escalate the issues of the mess to the administration and it was the responsibility of the administration to solve those issues for all relevant parties. He reiterated that it was not the SMC’s role to solve the mess issues, but to act as a bridge between the Messes, the Admin and the GB. He also said that there should be an official Google Form tagged with Email IDs for the General Body to submit complaints for the SMC to escalate and solve. He stated that Facebook was not the right channel for complaints and that a more official platform would be suitable for the same. When a member of the SMC pointed out that most people find it easier to use Facebook, he suggested that the SMC could publish 15/30-day complaint logs on Facebook that would compile the list of complaints as well as action taken to prevent them from happening again, all in one place. 

Feel free to share!

You may also enjoy...