How Mess Functions at IIT-K (Part-1)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a very tough time for the majority of us. IIT Kanpur (IITK) was also not shielded from the adverse conditions that arose during the pandemic. Two academic batches at IIT Kanpur had to start their program while not being on the campus, in fully online mode. They started their academic journey in a new institute without really knowing the campus ecosystem, both academic and nonacademic. The pandemic and subsequent closure of the campus left no scope for formal and informal interactions between the newer and older batches of students. In pre-pandemic times it was through these organic exchanges and interactions amongst different batches of students that the newer ones used to get initiated in different facets of campus life. One such aspect during their stay on the campus is the functioning of the mess in halls of residence. After the third wave of the pandemic, the campus is trying to go back to the offline mode of education. Other aspects of campus life are coming back to normal. In this regard, it is important for the new students to understand how the Mess functions in Halls of Residence at IIT Kanpur. A proper functioning Mess is an essential requirement for its residents to concentrate on their academic affairs. We, at Forum for Critical Thinking (FCT-IITK), take this opportunity to pen down the details regarding the functioning of Mess. In this first part of a series of articles we intend to publish, we shall be discussing the Fixed Cost Service Model that is being followed throughout the messes of IITK. We shall try to briefly explain the roles of various entities in the running of the mess and discuss the financial part of its functioning to understand how our money is being used. In the upcoming parts, we shall be discussing the different approaches that can be adopted to further strengthen this model. One part will be dedicated to analyze a mess model called ‘Per Student Per Day’ (PSPD) proposed in 2017 and 2019 but withdrawn after students’ opposition to it.

Part 1: Fixed Cost Service Model
The present mess model of IIT-K is named Fixed Cost Service Model (FCSC).  After joining IITK, registered students are allotted different halls for their stay at the campus. IITK being an all-residential campus, all the registered students must join the hall and mess except for special cases with permission from the Dean of Students Affairs’ (DoSA) office. On joining Hall, its residents are automatically registered for the mess.

Students staying in a Hall are supposed to pay the following charges for availing mess services:

• Mess establishment Charges (MEC) (paid per semester)
• Monthly Mess Bill

Mess Establishment Charges
Students are supposed to pay MEC each semester along with the semester fee. MEC for the regular semester is around Rs 13,000 and for those staying on campus in the summer semester, the MEC is around Rs 6,400. One part of MEC consists of salaries and benefits (Employee State Insurance (ESI), Provident Fund (PF)) for the workers employed in hall messes and the remaining is the service charge  (8-11%) paid to the mess contractor for providing services in managing the mess operations. Here it is important to note that the normal semester runs for five months for postgraduate students and for four months for undergraduates. 

IIT Kanpur is mandated by The Minimum Wages Act 1948 and The Minimum Wages (Central) Rules, 1950 to pay all contractual workers the central minimum wage. This central minimum wage is revised twice a year in April and October based on the inflation rates and other parameters by the Union government. 

Every month the mess contractor raises the bill/invoice based on the total number of workers (based on man-days) employed in the mess. This bill also contains the service charges which are payable to the contractor. In simple words, the service charge is the profit of the mess contractor. Let us take an example to understand this structure of Invoice. Let’s assume a Hall of Residence Y has 450 students residing and availing the mess facility. For these 450 students, 40 mess workers will be deployed to ensure the proper functioning of mess for three meals a day. Since mess runs for all the days in a month, the total man-days become (40×30=1200) for a month of 30 days. At present, the central minimum wage is Rs 645 for unskilled workers. Let us assume here for the simplification of calculation that only unskilled workers are employed in the mess. For 1200 man-days the total wage component becomes Rs 7,74,000. If the service charge is 8% (assume), it becomes Rs 61,920. The total invoice cost will be Rs 9,86,385 for a month inclusive of 18% GST(Rs 1,50,465). Based on this bill, the DoSA office will release the monthly payment to the contractor from the MEC collected from the students in the semester fee. Apart from this, the institute also reimburses the mess contractor the amount of Rs 92,880 (12% of workers’ salary) for Provident Fund (PF) and Rs 29,025 (3.75% of workers’ salary) for Employee State Insurance (ESI) that the contractor deposit in the workers’ accounts at Employees’ Provident Fund Organization and Employees’ State Insurance Corporation respectively. This amount is also paid by the DoSA office from the MEC charges collected from the students. Mess Establishment Charge (MEC) simply is the labor cost (including social benefits) and service charge paid by the students for services they avail themselves of at the mess. 

S.No.	Description	Amount (Rs)
1.	Salary (1200 man-days)	7,74,000
2.	Service Charge (8% of workers’ salary)	61,920
3.	GST (18% of S.No. 1 & 2)	1,50,465
4.	PF (12% of workers’ salary)	92,880
5.	ESI (3.75% of workers’ salary)	29,025
6.	Total	11,08,298

Table 1: Approximate Monthly Break-up of Mess Establishment Charge for a Hall of 450 residents.

Monthly Mess Bill
Apart from the MEC, students are supposed to pay the mess bill every month to the hall account. Following are the four main components of the monthly mess bill:

• Basic Daily Meal Rate (BDMR)
• Hall Development Fund (HDF)
• Extra food items purchased
• External coupons

Monthly mess bill = (BDMR x no. of days in month) + Extra food items purchased + HDF

Basic Daily Meal Rate (BDMR)
‘Basic daily meal’ (BDM) includes food items consumed by residents in breakfast (such as daily changing items like poha, dosa-sambar, sandwiches, etc. along with regulars like daliya, sprouts, egg, milk, tea, etc.), lunch, and dinner (one dal, one sabzi, rice, chapati, sambar, fruits, etc.). This basic daily meal does not include the items cooked on the order of individual residents (Omelette, paneer bhujia, egg rice, fried rice, dal tadka, DCBM, to name a few).

To run the mess, every hall purchases all the necessary raw items required for the food preparation. Different vendors supply the hall with all the necessary raw materials against the order raised by the Mess or the hall office. The total expenditure on the monthly BDM is divided by the total number of residents to obtain the BDMR. BDMR is the average cost of food per day in a given month.

BDMR = Total expenditure on raw material in the month by mess
no. of hall residents x no.  of days in the month

This BDMR excludes the money generated by the mess on selling external coupons. This BDMR gets modified after these coupons are taken into consideration during calculations. This will be discussed in the coming section.

Hall Development Fund (HDF)
HDF, also called ‘Establishment Charge’ in some halls, is collected by the hall every month from its residents. HDF varies from hall to hall and is usually between Rs. 40-75. This fund is used for carrying out different maintenance works and purchases in the hall.

Extra food items purchased
Apart from basic daily meals, residents of the hall can purchase extra food items such as egg, vegetarian, and non-vegetarian items. These items are prepared on order placed in the mess. The cost of these items is decided by the Hall Executive Committee (HEC) in consultation with mess managers.

External coupons
Campus community members like other hall residents, SBRA residents, research assistants (RAs), staff, and faculty can also use the hall mess facilities. These non-hall-residents are required to purchase cash coupons for every meal they take at the mess. The cost of these items is decided by the Hall Executive Committee (HEC) in consultation with mess managers. The cost of these coupons is higher than the BDMR paid by the regular residents of the hall. Further, the total amount of these coupons sold is deducted from the total expenditure on the raw material done by the hall. This makes the final BDMR calculation formula as:

BDMR = Total expenditure on raw material – total collection from cash coupons
no. of hall residents x no.  of days in the month

Mess Rebate:
Mess rebate is applicable when a student leaves the campus on a personal, medical, or academic leave for more than 3 days. The rules for mess rebate are drafted by hall HECs and vary from hall to hall. For example, if a student leaves campus for 7 days in a month of 30, then the mess bill is calculated only for the number of days that the student has taken the food at the mess, i.e., 23 days in this example. This makes the final monthly mess bill calculation formula as: 

Monthly mess bill = (BDMR x no. of days food taken) + Extra items purchased + HDF

Above is the overview of the different fees and bills students pay at IITK to avail mess facilities. In the next section, we will be discussing the role played by the contractor, students’ HEC, Hall residents. wardens and IITK administration in ensuring the smooth and transparent functioning of the hall. 

Role of Different Stakeholders in the Mess 

Hall Executive Committee (HEC) (students)
HECs are the executive student bodies of each hall of residence elected every year by hall residents. The main purpose of HEC is to represent the hall residents in every decision-making related to the hall. Mess facility is one such avenue that requires the active participation of the HEC. HEC consists of two to three mess secretaries among others. The mess secretaries further form a mess committee by calling nominations from the hall residents. These volunteers help mess secretaries in managing day to day activities of the mess in a smooth manner.

Following are the essential responsibilities of HEC and the mess committee:

1. HEC must represent the hall in all the meetings of the Hall management committee (HMC), Council of Students Hostels Affairs (CoSHA), Student’s Senate (SS), and other forums to voice the concerns and issues of the hall residents.
2. Every year HEC must take active participation in the selection procedure of a new mess contractor as described by the rules mentioned in the mess contract. 
3. HEC must ensure that the mess contractor complies with the terms and conditions agreed upon in the contract. 
4. HEC must ensure that all the meals are made available to the residents at a pre-decided time without any delay. HEC coordinates with the mess manager employed by the contractor to ensure this. 
5. The mess committee must ensure that the contractor is following the 11.25:1 ratio (decided in the contract) while employing workers in mess. This must not be compromised at any cost as the decrease in workers employed in preparing and serving food directly affects the quality of food and service in mess.
6. HEC selects the vendors for the supply of raw materials in the mess by calling multiple quotations. HEC must keep the experience of supplier, price, and quality of raw material in mind while deciding the vendor. HEC holds full autonomy while taking this decision. HEC must ensure that they have multiple vendors for every supply at all times.  This avoids the monopoly of any vendor and keeps the prices of raw materials down. Active participation of HEC can ensure that the monthly mess bill is under control and the food quality is maintained.
7. The mess committee makes sure that the vendors are supplying the best (or pre-decided) quality and demanded quantity of the raw materials. HEC holds full autonomy in the cancellation of the order to any vendor if it is not complying with the pre-decided terms of price, quality, and quantity. At least one HEC or mess committee member must be present during the arrival of raw material to verify the quality of the material.
8. Mess secretaries of HEC ensure that the mess monthly bills are sent to the residents regularly. Complete transparency must be exercised in BDMR calculations and must be regularly communicated to all residents.   
9. HEC must ensure the cleanliness of the kitchen and dining areas through regular monitoring and issuing necessary directives.  
10. By conducting regular meetings whereby residents are asked to vote and opine for their preferred food items, HEC makes sure that residents’ choices are incorporated in the menu. Mess committee members ensure that food quality and taste are not compromised and no adulteration is done by carrying out checks in the kitchen, cold storage and other storages for pulses etc. HEC must arrange the regular meetings with residents to know their grievances and opinion on food. 
11. HEC should make a mess menu keeping in mind the practical constraints like fixed labor force and seasonal availability of raw materials. Including too many items in the basic or extra menu can affect the taste of food due to the workers being overburdened. By judiciously choosing seasonal vegetables and other locally sourced materials HEC also helps regulate the cost of the menu.  
12. HEC must make sure that the contractor is releasing the salaries of the workers by the first week of every month along with their ESI and PF. 
13. HEC must address the grievances of mess workers by coordinating with the mess manager or contractor as and when required, as the problems faced by workers in their working area can affect the quality of services. 

Role of Hall Residents
Residents are the primary users of the mess. To ensure the proper functioning of the mess, residents must actively participate in the mess affairs. Residents must provide HEC with essential feedback on mess related issues from time to time. Residents must hold their elected HEC members accountable for the transparency in the functioning of mess affairs.  Residents must ensure that HEC is performing its roles as mentioned above (see “role of HEC”). Residents must provide support to HEC to make sure that their voices are heard at platforms such as HMC, CoSHA & SS.

The mess is a form of community kitchen where residents from different regions, food habits, and economic backgrounds have their food. Every resident must keep in mind that mess provides only basic food and it cannot function like restaurants. Every individual choice of food cannot always be accommodated due to different constraints such as cost of food, seasonal availability of vegetables and fruits, training of cook in food preparation, etc. Residents must be reasonable while presenting their opinions to the HEC members and must never forget that HEC members are fellow students who are devoting their valuable time voluntarily from their academics, so that mess can function smoothly for everyone’s benefit. 

Contractor
The service of every mess facility at IIT Kanpur has been outsourced to the contractors, who provide services and manage the daily functioning of the mess. Contractors have to ensure that the required number of workers needed to run the mess facility in the hall are employed every day. The contractor is responsible for the timely preparation of food, cleanliness of the kitchen and dining area. The contractor through its manager in coordination with hall HEC ensures the smooth functioning of the mess facility.

Every contractor is responsible to ensure that for every 11.25 residents 1 worker is employed in the mess. The contractor must pay the salaries according to the minimum wage act of 1948 and The Minimum Wages (Central) Rules, 1950 to every worker by the first week of every month. The contractor must make sure that they are depositing the ESI & provident fund of workers to concerned government departments regularly. The contractor must facilitate the paperwork regarding salaries, ESI, and PF. The contractor must address the grievances of the workers as and when they are reported. 

For the services provided by the contractor in the mess, it is paid a fixed service charge decided during the allocation of the contract through a tendering process.

Role of Wardens
Each hall of residence has three faculty members as wardens appointed by institute administration on the recommendation of HECs. Each hall has a dedicated warden for mess affairs to advise HEC and mess committee regarding the functioning of the mess facility as and when asked for.  Wardens are the signing authority for the banking affairs for the payments to the vendors and other service providers. 

Role of IITK administration
Following are the essential responsibilities performed by IITK administration through offices of DoSA, ADHA, and wardens:

1. Institute every year calls for a tender for the running of all the mess facilities on the campus. Transparency in the allocation of mess tender is the important and foremost responsibility of the administration.
2. Through wardens in coordination with HEC, the administration makes sure that contract conditions are being complied with by the contractors.
3. Administration ensures that no mal-practices such as favoritism, corruption, etc. are practiced by the contractor during employment and deployment of workers by regularly issuing necessary directives to halls and contractors.
4. Institute administration ensures that the DoSA office clears the contractor bills well in time, so that the contractor can make salary payments to the workers by the first week of the month.
5. IIT Kanpur administration is the principal employer of workers working on the campus. Being a central government institute, the IITK administration ensures that contractors are following The Minimum Wages Act 1948 and The Minimum Wages (Central) Rules, 1950.
6. Institute makes sure that necessary funds are made available to the hall for upgrading and maintaining mess facilities as and when required. 

This is the overall functioning of the present working model of the hall mess facilities on the campus. From students’ point of view, the strength of the present mess model is that at every step, the participation of the students (primary service user) is ensured. Students actively participate in the selection of new contractors, selection of vendors, deciding food quality, mess menu, etc. The effective participation from HECs and residents can ensure that they are served quality food at low price in the mess, as they are the main decision-makers in the mess affairs. This mess model is also very convenient for the IITK administration as students share a majority of the day-to-day responsibilities necessary for the smooth functioning of the mess facilities on the campus. This system is very important from the point of view of the workers whose hard labor makes sure that we are served with food well on time every day. This system ensures that they are paid with central government-mandated minimum wages along with social benefits of provident fund and health security scheme of ESI.

Having said that, we do not imply that this present mess model of the ‘Fixed Cost Service Model’ (FCSC) has no shortcomings and there is no scope of improvement in it. In the coming parts of this series of articles, we will be presenting our view on the scope of improvement in this mess model. Along with that, we will be presenting the analysis of the ‘Per Student Per Day’ (PSPD) model that has been rejected by the students in 2017 & 2019.

Forum of Critical Thinking (FCT-IITK)

Educate, Agitate, Organize

Place: IIT Kanpur

Date: 03.03.2022

Forum of Critical Thinking (FCT-IITK) is an informal group of IIT Kanpur students and community members aiming to develop a critical understanding of issues facing the institute and the country. FCT-IITK formed out of a series of discussions amongst students who were concerned about the erosion of democratic values both within the campus and in the country. This forum aims to understand the systemic reasons that underlie the problems faced by the campus community, and attempts to understand it in relation to the socio-political context we occupy within the larger body politic of the nation. Follow us @ https://www.facebook.com/iitkfct. You can reach us @criticalthinkingforumiitk@gmail.com

Lack of Health Rights of IITK Workers Amidst the Pandemic: Case of a Mess Worker with Renal Failure

Summary

This Hamara Manch update presents the status of statutory health benefits for contract workers in the Institute Contract workers of IIT Kanpur do not have access to the health centre or any other related facility through the Institute. But all the contract workers are legally entitled to health benefits for themselves and their families under the ESI Act. Although, as the case of Rama Shankar, a mess worker, shows, these rights are very difficult to be realised, especially during the pandemic. ESI benefits are dependent on minimum days of employment and regular employment of all mess workers, and many other kinds of workers too got discontinued during the last two years.

In May 2019 Rama Shankar suffered irreversible kidney failure in both the kidneys and since then needs at least two dialysis per week to keep things under control. This means an expenditure of Rs. 30,000 per month which through ESI support was a cashless procedure for him. But as we detail in this report, out of 32 months so far, he had to personally arrange for his dialysis for 12 months, which has meant an expenditure of Rs 3.6 lakhs. This has been devastating for the family. His children’s education has stopped, the extended family were forced to sell off their only asset– a tiny plot of land — in their village, and several other family contingencies have to be ignored.  It needs to be noted that a significant component of this money has been contributed by fellow workers, concerned hall students, and Hamara Manch.

It is important to appreciate that the problem of ensuring medical treatment to contract workers in IIT Kanpur is NOT about finding the resources to support individual cases. IIT Kanpur itself, with its contractual workforce of 2500-3000, contributes over Rs 2 crore annually to ESIC. And yet the workers of the Institute are not able to access its benefits. We believe that as the principal employer the Institute should take responsibility of health rights of its contract workers and a few measures would go a long way to ensure this:

• Given the crisis situation created by the pandemic, the Institute needs to interface with the ESIC on a priority basis to ensure that necessary benefits are immediately made available to the workers. 
• Simultaneously the institute needs to provide essential support and guidance to enable its workforce to access what is their right.
• And finally it needs to create a process for ESI claims within the Institute which could be easily accessed by the workers when required.

Health Rights of IIT Kanpur Workers: Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 (ESI Act)

Contract workers of IIT Kanpur do not have access to the health centre or any other health-related facility through the Institute. But all contract workers at IIT Kanpur are legally entitled to health benefits for themselves and their families through the ESI Act, 1948. This first major legislation of independent India on social security for workers recognised that “the State has to step in and assume the responsibilities of providing the fundamental or basic security to the common men in the economic sphere for the common good.¹”

Though the Act came up in 1948, IIT Kanpur has been mandating that all contract workers have to be covered by the ESI Act only since 2008. Since then, the Institute as the principal employer of contract workers has been contributing its share for the ESI of most of the contract workers (civil construction work is one big exception to this). The workers’ contribution is also being deducted by the contractors. The total contribution from the Institute² to the ESI Corporation corpus annually is to the tune of Rs 2 crores. Significantly the current corpus of the corporation is a whopping Rs 92000 crores³! And yet in spite of such a massive contribution to the ESIC fund, IIT Kanpur’s contract workers do not have access to adequate health care as mandated by Act⁴. How and why is this happening? 

The case of Rama Shankar, a mess worker in IIT Kanpur, exemplifies the situation, while also showing what is possible if the Act is appropriately implemented.

The Case of Rama Shankar

Rama Shankar joined Hall 2 mess as a worker in March 2014 and has been working there since then. His ESI records show that he has been continuously contributing his share of ESI since the start of his employment. In early 2019 he came down with fever and went to his native village in the neighbouring district of Unnao. When asked why he did not approach the ESI facility, he told us that he did not know anything about it. The village doctor diagnosed his fever as typhoid and gave some medicines that helped, but a month later, the fever returned. This time, however, the village doctor’s medication did not help, and though he discontinued it after five days, his condition kept getting worse, he was feeling extremely fatigued all the time and was unable to work. At this point he started asking around for possible medical attention; with the help of a family member and after much running around, he was finally directed to the ESI hospital in Pandu Nagar. At the hospital, he was referred to The Institute of Cardiology &Cardiac Surgery in Kanpur (popularly referred to as Cardiology), probably because his blood pressure was very elevated. Several tests were done at Cardiology and finally, he was told that both his kidneys had failed. He was also told that the condition was irreversible and that he would need continuous dialysis for the rest of his life unless he undergoes a successful kidney transplant. Based on this diagnosis the ESI hospital referred him to Chandni Hospital in Kanpur for dialysis and within a week his dialysis started at the hospital. For the first round starting on 8th May 2019, Rama Shankar was admitted to the hospital for 10 days which involved various tests and observations. Since then he has been undergoing dialysis twice a week in Chandni hospital under Dr. Santosh Kumar. 

Weekly dialysis resulted in significant improvement in Rama Shankar’s health condition. After a break of two months, he was able to resume duties in the mess from July 2019. His condition, however, remained fragile, and he was unable to do the work required of a regular mess worker in IITK. To remind ourselves, the workday of a regular mess worker is 15 to 16 hours with some breaks. His colleagues divided his share of the work among themselves so that Rama Shankar could continue getting both his wages and also his treatment through ESI. 

Rama Shankar is the eldest of five siblings – two sisters and three brothers. He is in his early thirties and apparently had no health issues before this. His family had a small piece of land which ensured grain for the family and his father sold vegetables to augment the family income. Rama Shankar is married and has two sons – aged 4 years and 10 years at present. Savitri, Rama Shankar’s wife, and his two sons stayed in the village before he fell ill. The extended family relied significantly on Rama Shankar’s contribution for its sustenance. But when he fell ill, Savitri had to shift to Kanpur to take care of Rama Shankar. The children also came along as there was no one to take care of them in the village. The younger son was barely two years old then. In spite of cashless treatment through ESI, the family could barely manage to have to pay for the rent, food, schooling costs, and other essential expenses. 

In September 2019, Rama Shankar’s worker colleagues in Hall 2 decided to put in a collective request to the hall manager for Savitri to also get employed in the Hall mess. Savitri joined work in the same month and the family situation improved somewhat. The arrangement was that given his limited ability Rama Shankar would work for 15 days and Savitri would work for 26 days a month.

Things remained tough and uncertain given the general deterioration of Rama Shankar’s health condition due to his renal failure and ensuing ailments. He would have bouts of fever and remains very susceptible to infection. He has to be very careful about the amount of liquid he can drink as the kidneys cannot flush it out and the liquid accumulates in his body. The dialysis process itself is quite excruciating and the patient requires very close monitoring and care. And still the family managed somehow with the help of fellow workers in the mess. 

The status quo continued till February 2020. And then a national lockdown was declared in March 2020 due to Covid19. Rama Shankar and Savitri along with 700 other mess workers were rendered unemployed. Rama Shankar was told that the cashless ESI facility would be discontinued from 31^st March 2020. And should he wish to continue dialysis he would have to pay from his pocket. 

Cost of Dialysis

The weekly dialysis costs come to around Rs 6000/- per week. Rama Shankar also needs other medicines to stabilise his system whose monthly cost comes to around Rs 6000/-. Thus, the total monthly medical expenses are approximately Rs 30,000/- per month.  To put this in perspective, an unskilled worker working for the entire month (i.e., 26 days) in IIT Kanpur would get around Rs 14,500⁵ at present. That barely covers two weeks of dialysis and medication in a month! 

As mentioned earlier, from April 2020 Rama Shankar and Savitri and the other 700 mess workers working across the 14 halls of IITK, were thrown out of employment as all the messes had closed down in the Institute. In this dire situation, while struggling to pay for food and rent, this family also had to figure out how to manage Rs 30,000 a month for dialysis. Neither IIT Kanpur as the principal employer nor ESIC office took any step to ensure that Rama Shankar’s critical treatment continued. The family knew that he would not survive without weekly dialysis. They started to scrape together all their resources merely to ensure the next round of dialysis, suspending the worry for longer term. 

After exhausting all their savings the family borrowed Rs 80,000/- at an interest of 10% per month (an annual interest of Rs. 96,000 with the principal intact). But this did not even cover two months of dialysis and the interest kept piling up. At this point Rama Shankar’s family decided to sell their small piece of land to pay off the loan and a few months of dialysis. The land was their last asset and losing it left them vulnerable for bare existence. 

The family paid for dialysis for 5 months from April 2020 to August 2020. And then after several rounds of pleading and requests the ESI office granted Rama Shankar treatment through ESI from September 2020 to December 2020. That eased the situation slightly, but with no income things were desperate. Rama Shankar, Savitri, and the children moved back to their village. But twice a week he had to come to Kanpur for his dialysis. Each trip cost an added Rs 500 including fare and food and took the entire day for Rama Shankar and the accompanying caregiver.

ESI stopped paying for his dialysis yet again on 31^st December 2020. The family kept paying for his treatment through January 2021, while making countless rounds of the ESI office for a possible extension. Given his condition, the ESI office extended the facility but warned him that this was the last extension. Rama Shankar’s dialysis was paid through ESI from February 2021 to June 30^th, 2021.

Since then (July 2021 till present) Savitri (Rama Shankar’s wife) and his family have been paying for his dialysis with support from his colleagues, hall students, and Hamara Manch. The table below details the cost of dialysis of Rama Shankar for the last 32 months since May 2019. The total cost of dialysis has been Rs 9.6 lakhs so far, of which Rs 6 lakhs has been covered by ESI and Rs 3.6 lakhs has been paid by the family and support group. 

Table: Cost of Dialysis and who bore it (in Rs)

Period	Total No of Months	Total Expenses of Treatment	Supported by ESIC	Paid from private means
May 2019 to March 2020	11 months	330000	330000
April 2020 to August 2020	5 months	150000		150000
September 2020 to December 2020	4 months	120000	120000
January 2021	1 month	30000		30000
February 2021 to June 2021	5 months	150000	150000
July 2021 to December 2021	6 months	180000		180000
Total	32 months	960000	600000	360000

The impact of this expense has been devastating for the family. Rama Shankar’s father seems to have lost his mental balance due to the shock of his eldest son’s illness and the precarity that it has caused. He is not able to bring in almost any financial contribution. There are several other critical demands on the family which they are forced to neglect because of lack of money. There is rent for their stay next to IIT which comes to Rs 3000 per month. The children have been forced to leave school since their father’s illness as the family just could not afford the fees and other expenses. Probably the most serious issue is the persistent eye infection of the 10-year-old elder son of the couple. The child periodically loses vision in one eye, and the family cannot afford any regular treatment. This too would have been covered by ESI should the facility been available to them. 

Since August 2021 the messes in the Institute have started functioning partially, and the worker-colleagues of Savitri, with support from the students in Hall 11 (where Savitri is currently employed), have ensured that she gets regular employment. Since the requirement of workers is significantly less than regular times, this implies that these mess workers of Hall 2 and Hall 11 have decided to take lesser number of workdays in solidarity with the family. Further since Rama Shankar is in no position to work, it was decided to try to get his treatment through ESI as a dependent of Savitri. But in spite of enormous efforts by several individuals and collectives for months, including countless visits to the ESI office, Rama Shankar’s treatment is still dependent on private support.

The ESI Conundrum

The ESIC website claims that under the section 46 of the Act:

Full medical care is provided to an Insured person and his family members from the day he enters insurable employment. There is no ceiling on expenditure on the treatment of an Insured Person or his family member. Medical care is also provided to retired and permanently disabled insured persons and their spouses on payment of a token annual premium of Rs.120/–⁶

But the reality is vastly different as is evident from the case of Rama Shankar. There are several reasons for this:

1) The site itself has contradictory rules under various sections, and no one, including ESI officials, seems to know what is possible or applicable in a particular case, as is evident from the following:

• In September 2021 the ESI office claimed that Rama Shankar’s dependency status could be activated if Savitri had a certain number of days of work and contribution. In October 2021 Savitri’s account had the requisite days but the ESI office said she would only start getting benefits from November 2021. 
• In November 2021 she was told that it could not commence until January 2022 due to some technicality of contribution period and beneficiary period. 
• In December 2021 when the office was again approached to confirm, we were told that the services would be accessible for Savitri from January 2022 but for Rama Shankar as a dependent it would commence only in July 2022. And that too if Savitri gets continuous work and makes continuous contribution to the ESI fund. It took several visits to even get this clarification and there might be a further catch which we are not aware of yet. Meanwhile Savitri and Rama Shankar and their support group now need to figure out how to manage treatment till July 2022.

2) The workers usually are not even aware of their rights. Apparently for such critical illness like Rama Shankar’s he should have been admitted in the hospital and given partial sick wages and proper treatment right from the beginning. Further his treatment should have not been abruptly interrupted in April 2020 given that he had been contributing regularly for several months prior to it.

3) Neither the contractor’s men, nor the Institute employee meant to take care of contract workers’ issues including ESI and EPF have any knowledge of the Act and its provisions and how it can be accessed. 

And so, the entire thing is left to the hapless worker. And it is impossible for an individual worker with very little means and support to be able to negotiate the labyrinth of the ESI system.

Institutional Support not Individual Contribution

Rama Shankar’s is not an isolated case, though it is probably one of the most compelling. Over the years, Hamara Manch has come to know of several cases of medical crisis which are much beyond what can be handled by collective support let alone individual means. Things have become grimmer over the last two years due to the pandemic and the ensuing loss of employment, particularly among mess workers. Not all cases get reported but even as we write this, there are several mess workers who have family members in need of serious medical attention or are hospitalised and they cannot afford the treatment. The regular mails to student body are a testimony to this. But the scale of support required can only be available through institutional means.  Further, why should the workers be dependent on charity when the law accords them medical attention as a right?

As we have come to understand through pursuing Rama Shankar’s case in the ESI office for the past several months, at present none of the mess workers are entitled to ESI benefits in spite of contribution made for each day of work in their accounts. This is because of the constraint of a minimum number of days’ contributions required in each six-monthly period. Apparently, it does not matter if the worker has contributed for decades before that if the contribution falls short in the preceding six-month period. And all the workers were out of job for the last two years through no fault of theirs, so they do not meet the criteria.

So What Can be Done?

The problem of ensuring medical treatment to contract workers in IIT Kanpur is NOT about finding the resources to support individual cases. The ESI corpus is a whopping Rs 92,000 crores and is growing at the rate of Rs 10,000-15,000 crore annually. IIT Kanpur itself, with its contractual workforce of 2500-3000, contributes over Rs 2 crore annually to ESIC. And yet the workers of the Institute are not able to access its benefits. This we believe is because the Institute’s policy thus far has been merely to abide by the letter of the law without any effort to ensure that the spirit of the law is also enabled. Which other investment of Rs 2 crores would be left without any accountability of its proper usage?

• The Institute needs to step in to ensure the medical rights of the workers. Given the crisis situation created by the pandemic, the Institute needs to interface with the ESIC on a priority basis to ensure that necessary benefits are immediately made available to the workers. 
• At the same time, the institute needs to provide essential support and guidance to enable its workforce to access what is their right.
• Moreover, it needs to create a process for ESI claims within the Institute which could be easily accessed by the workers when required.

We believe the entire IIT community should push for the above measures to be able to uphold the medical rights and dignity of its most vulnerable constituency as enshrined in the ESI Act, 1948.

Social security provision made in the Act is…aimed at upholding human dignity in times of crises through protection from deprivation, destitution and social degradation while enabling the society the retention and continuity of a socially useful and productive manpower.

Hamara Manch
December 2021

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¹https://www.esic.nic.in/CIRCULARS/150MeetingBook.pdf, p1
²(Employer’s contribution is 3.25% of the wages and employee’s is 0.75%)
³https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/esic-may-invest-corpus-in-equities-mfs-bonds-11610585231788.html
⁴The ESI Act 1948, encompasses certain health related eventualities that the workers are generally exposed to; such as sickness, maternity, temporary or permanent disablement, Occupational disease or death due to employment injury, resulting in loss of wages or earning capacity-total or partial. https://www.esic.nic.in/about-us
⁵After statutory deduction of 0.75% for ESI and 12% for EPF. The minimum wages for IIT Kanpur contract workers is Rs 650/- per day.
⁶https://www.esic.nic.in/information-benefits

Second appeal by the collective of mess-canteen workers

Friends,

A second appeal to the community by the collective of mess and canteen workers, that they have released on 2nd Oct. (in Hindi), is attached. In brief, it makes the following points:

1.     This week Rs. 6000/ have been credited in every mess workers’ a/c and they thank the community for their support which has played an important role in this money reaching them. They point out that they have to date received Rs 12,400 (Rs. 6400/ were credited in their a/cs in July) from the Institute since May 2020, which works out to roughly one month’s normal salary for them.

2.     They are thankful that workers from among the existing mess workers have been employed in the messing facility put in place for students who are returning to the campus.

3.     Yet they are concerned that the few workers who have been employed at present are being asked to work for 13-14 hours everyday while so many of them are without work and waiting to get employed

4.     As messing facilities change and expand further, they seek community support on the following issues:

Workers@iitk Amidst the COVID Lockdown

Hamara Manch Update 6: September 3, 2020

The sixth report of Hamara Manch on the state of IIT workers during lockdown is on the mess workers. IIT Kanpur is a residential campus and around 7000 students study here. One of the most crucial services for smooth running of the core activities of the Institute relies on consistent and reliable messing services. As the Institute website rightly claims in their blurb on student life ‘The Halls of residence provide great tasting nutritious food’ and thepreparation of over 21,000 meals round the year every single day of regular running of the campus is ensured by the dedicated services of over 700 mess workers across fourteen halls of residences. These workers (and their families) too were left in a lurch when the Institute closed all the student hostels sine die on 20^th March 2020. We spoke to around 100 workers across several halls to understand how the mess workers of our Institute have been coping with the crisis created by the pandemic which has resulted in the loss of their livelihoods.

Hall Mess Workers of IITK

Messing is a perennial service for a residential campus. And though the working hours of these workers is way beyond the legally stipulated working day[1] most of the workers get minimum wages and other legal benefits like ESI (health) and EPF (Provident Fund). Further, because of their continued collective effort and the support of the students and the administration over the years, the mess workers are a stable workforce. This means that unlike the usual practice in contractual jobs, the workers remain in service even if the service provider (contractor) is replaced. This has ensured continuity of consistent and good quality messing services despite change in contracts, given the experience and teamwork of these workers. A conscientious workforce in the messes with support from student body has been instrumental in ensuring that some of the legal rights of workers are ensured in the Institute, even though there is ample scope for improvement.

Most of these workers live in the vicinity of the campus. Though a significant number stay in their family (joint) homes, about 25 percent of workers are from outside Kanpur and stay with their families in rented accommodation in the neighbourhood localities. Most of these workers are single earner or primary earners of their families. In regular times most of them got about 22 to 26 duties in a month which translates to about Rs 12,000 to Rs14,000 per month. This amount barely covered their regular expenses like food, education, accommodation, etc and usually nothing was left as savings. Any contingency – like a medical emergency or marriage was usually met with borrowings.

Post Closure of the Hostels

Like all other categories of contingent workers we have reported earlier, the financial condition of these seven hundred mess workers and their families have become increasingly uncertain over the months after the closure of the hostels. The Institute paid the wages for March as well as April to the mess workers. And then in July the Institute transferred a one-time amount of Rs 6,400/- to the mess workers’ accounts. Besides the salary of April, this is the entire support they have got from the Institute in the five months that have elapsed since the hostels closed in March.

Regular Expenses of Workers During this Period:

Food:

Most workers are dependent on the 5 kg of grains per month given to all members of the household through PDS who have a valid ration card. Some workers do not have a ration card hence have to buy from the market. All the other nutritional supplements including pulses and milk have practically disappeared from their plates. Just after the lockdown many people from the countryside would come to sell vegetables at extremely cheap prices, indicating widespread rural distress, hence families could afford them. At present the rural supply has dried out, and ironically, many of the workers have taken to selling vegetables themselves. But given the general lack of buying power, they are not able to cover even their costs.

Rent:

Majority of the workers stay in joint family situations hence do not have to shell out rent. Some workers who had moved out to independent households have been forced to go back to the joint household. Around 150 to 200 workers are from outside Kanpur, and though many of them have gone back to their native places since the lockdown some have stayed back in the hope that the Institute would open soon. They stay in rented accommodations where rent ranges from Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500 for a single room accommodation which sometimes include the electricity and the water bills and sometimes that is extra – around Rs 1000-1500/- more. Many of the landlords have agreed to postpone the rent payment for the time but the amount has been adding up and would need to be settled at some point.

Education

A significant component of their expenses is towards education for the children. The schools have generally gone online. Since going online, many schools in Nankari have not been insisting on payment of fees but some schools, including KV IITK, have demanded the fees to be paid in full, else have threatened that the ward’s name would be struck out. Most workers do not have money to buy books and stationery for their wards. Even earlier, most kids used to supplement their school lessons with tuitions but post the lock-down, tuitions have become even more crucial for school level education. Parents believe that should they discontinue tuitions their children would forget everything.  Significantly tuitions are conducted in physical face-to-face mode.

·      Most workers have two to three school-going children. They study in private schools in and around the campus (Nankari, Guba Garden, etc.). A few go to KV IIT Kanpur too.

·      The school fees of children in primary classes ranges from Rs 600 to Rs 1500 per month.

·      Tuition or coaching fees of children in primary section ranges from Rs 400-Rs 800 per month.

·      School fees for higher classes ranges from Rs 700 to Rs 1000 a month.

·      Tuition fees for higher classes ranges from Rs 1000 to Rs 2000.

·      Fees for college-going children, who have already paid up for this session, is Rs 6000-Rs 8000 per annum.

·      For wards attending professional colleges, fees vary from Rs 30,000 to Rs 60,000 per annum. Many have not been able to pay up the amount. In the case of one worker whose son is studying physiotherapy and his annual fees is Rs 60,000, the worker withdrew his entire EPF fund and still could manage only Rs 20,000/-.  He has requested clemency from his son’s college to allow his son to continue his studies with the promise that he would pay up the remaining amount in a few months’ time.

Medical Contingencies

Many workers have on-going medical expenses including chronic illnesses and conditions. We have not been able to collect detailed data and still we came to know of several instances including tuberculosis, cancer, amputation, physiotherapy for disabled children, life threatening ailments of elderly parents, hospitalisation and also deaths.

Employment during Lockdown

Not knowing when the messes would open and without any other source of income or savings most workers have been trying to get alternate employment since the unlock process started here. But even casual, temporary work has been very difficult to come by let alone steady employment. These workers, many of whom have decades of experience in messing (including multi-cuisine cooking, serving, cleaning, etc.), have tried to offer themselves in varied kinds of work just to get a few days of employment. The list below gives an idea of it. But even when they have been able to find employment for a few days, the wages are a fraction of their regular income (minimum wages) and the work hours are long.

·      There has been a spate of small-time construction work in the localities surrounding the campus. Several mess workers have found a few days’ work as helpers. But since they are not used to this work there is a reluctance to hire them, and when they do get hired their wages are way below the market wage of Rs 400 per day. The work is sporadic and uncertain and has already dwindled due to the monsoons.

·      Several workers have tried to get themselves hired in the Kalyanpur labour market. But given the general distress in the job market there is usually an oversupply of workers and very few get hired. The going rate for unskilled worker in the labour market is Rs 250-300 per day.

·      Several workers have started ferrying vegetables in carts, but again since there are so many of them, many have dropped out because of not even being able to cover their costs. The maximum they can earn is around Rs 150-200/ day.

·      A few workers have been working in the RA Tower mess – for a 16-hour day work they have been getting Rs 200 per day.

·      One has found 10-12 days of work as driver @ Rs 200/ day.

·      One worker has been doing some metalwork for 10 days a month @ Rs 250-300 per day.

·      One worker has been making leaf plates and bowls (pattal-dona)  @ Rs 300/- per day for 20 days a month.

·      One worker has been ironing clothes and earns Rs 400/ for a week.

·      One worker has been working as a domestic help at homes in Barasirohi and makes Rs 2700/ month.

·      Another worker, who is an LIC agent, had managed to sell insurance policies to 25 people, but 10 are not able to pay the premium.

·      Another worker had started a mobile cart for chips and momos, but had to wind up in two days due to lack of demand

How are they Managing? 

Most of the workers have no savings and whatever little they had has got exhausted. With no steady income they have been reduced to the following options:

Relying on extended family members

Some of the workers’ parents draw pension and the entire extended families have fallen back to this meagre sum to pull through. For example, one of the worker’s and his three brothers and their families, fifteen members in all, are now dependent on their mother’s widow pension of Rs 9,000/- per month. Another worker and his family and parents are dependent on his brother who has found employment in metro construction where he is supposed to get Rs 8,700/- per month.

Withdrawing of Funds and Savings

Many workers have withdrawn substantial amounts, in some cases the entire amount, from their EPF accounts to meet monthly expenses and contingencies. The withdrawn amounts range from Rs 20,000/- to Rs 40,000/-. This was their last resort – they have no buffer left for the future. As one worker reported that his daughter’s marriage is due in November but now that he has exhausted his PF money in meeting the household expenditure, he does not know how he would manage.

Loans from Moneylenders

Some workers have been forced to take loans from moneylenders at exorbitant rates. The loan amount ranges from Rs 5,000 to Rs 80,000 with interest ranging from 5% to 10 % per month[2].  Most of them have not even started paying back their interest let alone the principal. A few workers are already so heavily indebted that the moneylender has taken custody of their ATM card, passbook, chequebook and even Aadhar and PAN cards. At least one mess worker has committed suicide in this period. Apparently one of the primary reasons for him taking this extreme step was that he had a substantial outstanding loan and was very hassled as to how he would repay it.

Conclusion

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on the entire system including the Institute and its constituent members. All of us including the administration are trying to cope with this unprecedented situation. We all hope and believe that the Institute would go back to its normal functioning at some point, hopefully soon. And meanwhile the Institute had been doing maintenance work to ensure that the various resources including the hostels, lawns, laboratories, premises, building and machineries are kept in running condition so that once things ease out they would be able to perform as required. What is surprising is that the Institute seems to assume that the workforce which kept the Institute running in usual times would simply be accessible whenever it is decided that their services are required. But in over five months they have not made any attempt to hold a dialogue with the workers to enquire how they are managing their lives in this situation. And even more importantly what the Institute’s plans are regarding them. And this has left the workers very bewildered. A sentiment we heard repeatedly from the workers is that ‘we really appreciate the support the Institute has given us and would consider it a privilege to get back to work, any work, for the Institute. We used to spend 16 hours every day in the campus and today no one allows us to enter the campus, our id cards as workers have no meaning. We cannot sustain for much longer. The uncertainty is killing us, and we do not know whom to talk to about it.’

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[1] For messing kind of activities it is maximum 8 hours spread over at most a 12 hour period, beyond which one needs to pay overtime. Whereas in IITK messes the worker reports to duty at 6.30 am and by the time he finishes after clearing up the mess and cleaning it, it is usually 10.30-11 pm, which means a 16 hour workday with some intermittent breaks.

[2] A 10% interest per month means that for a Rs 1000 loan every month the interest due is Rs 100 and the loan amount itself is given after deducting the first month’s interest.

A Saga of Hall ‘Mis-Affairs’: Part Two

Nirvaak is reporting on certain alleged irregularities and misdemeanours that occurred in Hall 6 in the recent past. We covered election-related issues in the first part of the story. Now we go on to a different aspect.

Mess-related issues at Hall 6:

In September 2015, a number of mails were sent by Hall-6 residents to the hall administration, complaining about the services provided by the mess contractor, M/s Sugandhim Food and Catering Pvt Ltd., and demanding the termination of his contract. On 25 September, the mess warden informed the residents that a decision had been reached, in a meeting attended by the mess secretary, the representatives of the mess contractor, the CW* and the mess warden herself, to issue an official warning to the contractor and to levy a fine of Rs. 50,000, with the additional stipulation that failure to improve and maintain quality would result in termination of contract.

In January 2016, after several months had passed with no official updates on the matter (while messing services continued to be subpar), residents began mailing the mess warden again (CCing the other wardens, the DoSA and the ADHA), enquiring about the status of the promised monetary penalty. Some of them reported hearing from certain Gymkhana representatives that the fine imposed on the contractor had been transferred onto the mess workers and would be recovered from their salaries. This was deemed a travesty of justice by the residents, as most of their complaints had pertained to the quality of the raw materials, the amount and variety of the items served and the high BDMR; relatively fewer complaints were about the services of the workers. The unconfirmed rumour also had the effect of discouraging residents from lodging further complaints against the contractor, as it was felt that the brunt of any further punishment would also ultimately be borne by the workers.

The wardens neither confirmed nor denied the rumour, nor did they offer a clarification of any other sort. They simply did not respond to the mails.

Reportedly, the fine was finally claimed in July 2016.

The incident deepened the sentiment among Hall-6 residents that in their hall, accountability of office holders to the residents was close to nil.

Transparency in financial dealings could be given short shrift. Letters could go unanswered for any length of time. Decisions taken at official meetings could be overturned or their execution postponed indefinitely, without consulting the residents, and indeed, against their wishes. Even the facade of democracy seemed to be collapsing.

 

* The current Warden-in-Charge of Hall 6, who held this office also at the time of the incidents being reported.

Also read ‘A Saga of Hall ‘Mis-Affairs’: Part Three‘.

Our other stories on institutional democracy in hall affairs: ‘धुआँ-धुआँ है मंज़र कि कुछ दिखता नहीं है‘; ‘क्या हावड़ा ब्रिज बिना हमारा culture अधूरा है?‘