2017-11-06 Citizens' Forum's Response to Sarovar Group.

Editor's Note:

• In response to this mail.

• The response received is here.

504 5th Floor, Golf Course Road, Sector 43, Gurgaon-122009

Nov 05, 2017

Mr. Ajay K. Bakaya

Managing Director

Sarovar Hotels Pvt. Ltd

Dear Mr. Bakaya,

Thank you for responding back to our representative, however, we would have liked your response to be shared across all the recipients in the mailing list.

It is heartening to note that Sarovar/Louvre has shown commitment to the labor acts defending the rights of the Visitors’ Hostel (VH) workers and would like to be a fair organization that provides equal opportunity across the organization. However, we are disappointed that Sarovar/Louvre did not bother to respond to our specific claims, ignored the reality that 33 of the previous Visitors’ Hostels (VH) workers are still unemployed despite IITK’s promise that they would be given jobs by September end, and continues to violate labor laws and regulations at VH. Frankly speaking, we were not expecting such unprofessional response from an organization that claims to take pride in being fair and has been expanding globally.

We first raised the concern that (a) workers are working longer hours (sometimes even up to16 hours) than legally permitted, and (b) inexperienced workers were hired from faraway places. As these practices continue, we have gathered more facts and found the new management lacking at least on the points listed below:

1. The 74 workers under the old contract have been replaced with around 62 workers. This has resulted into substantially increased workload on the existing workers. There are also no planned and consistent shift schedules for the workers. These are all gross violations of labor laws as per Sections 13-17 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

2. All work under the old contract used to be monitored closely which had ensured high maintenance and service quality. The practice has ceased to be the case under the new contract and resulted into deterioration of the quality.

3. The fact is that migrant workers have been hired and yet proper rules and regulations set by the Interstate Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 (ISMW), are not being observed under the new contract. For example, the section 16 (d) under Chapter V of ISMW act clearly states about the duty of the contractor “to provide and maintain suitable residential accommodation” to the migrant workers, yet no proper arrangements have been made for the boarding and lodging of these migrant workers coming from Bengal, Chhatisgarh and other faraway regions of India. They have been forced to rent accommodation several kilometers away which make them so tired while traveling that under the hard working conditions of extended workhours, some of them have been found sleeping on arbitrary places in VH! It must be noted that all workers in the old contract were local and staying either on campus on in nearby localities. These workers were also provided regular full meals; unfortunately even this humane practice has been discontinued now.

4. The ISMW Act, 1979, also stipulates that the contractor has “to ensure suitable conditions of work to such workmen having regard to the fact that they are required to work in a State different from their own State.” We interpret this section with the insight that the migrant workers have to be given a home state like environment where they do not feel alienated. Under the working conditions mentioned above, we do not find Sarovar/Louvre passing this criterion. The 1979 Act also requires the contractor to provide displacement and journey allowances and free medical facilities. We find the Sarovar management lacking on all these counts. Some workers not in their full health have been found to be doing hard and strenuous work.

Based on above and other information gathered by us with the help of campus community, we would contend that

• The services of the VH have qualitatively deteriorated

• There are flagrant labour law violations by Sarovar

• The running of VH has been some what possible only because of the valuable experience of the older VH workers who were rehired

We are also providing a detailed report of the working conditions at VH prepared by our friends and colleagues at the campus (https://tinyurl.com/ycov6saw). We hope that the management will carefully read this report and come to own conclusions. We also request you to go through testimonies of some workers provided in the appendix of this report in order to feel the plight of these workers in their own words.

With all these instances, we feel that it has been almost impossible to continue with the new contract and unless Sarovar/Louvre provides jobs to all the laid off workers in arrangement with IITK administration and follows all labor laws and regulations, there is no reason that it should continue the contract.

We, the concerned alumni, expect from Sarovar/Louvre a detailed reply to all our concerns noted in the paragraphs above.

We are maintaining a complete documentation of alumni efforts and the information gathered on our website at http://iitkcf.appspot.com/

Sincerely yours,

IITK alumni Citizens Forum