Letter to IITK, 10th April 2011

To

Dr. S.G. Dhande, Director
Dr. Manindra Agarwal, Dean RPG
Mr. Rakesh Pandey, President Alumni Association
Mr. Ram B. Misra, Chairman, IITK Foundation
Mr. Abhay Bhushan,President IITK Foundation

Dear Gentlemen,

We would like to bring to your attention the problem of lack of toilet

for female workers at IITK. I know as men, we never think from woman's

perspective what kind of problems they may encounter if adequate toilet

facilities are not provided. The situation become even more pitiable when

the women in question are contract workers who do not even have the right

to complain let alone permission to use toilets during long working hours.

A report has been prepared by Hamara Manch* and IIT Kanpur Citizens'

Forum** and is attached here for your consideration.

The issue of lack of toilets for the dignity of females workers was also

recently brought out in a NY Times story: Improving Women's Status, One

Bathroom at a Time

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16iht-letter16.html?scp=1&sq=women%20toilet&st=cse

We would like to request that alumni, institute, and contractors

should work on providing adequate number of  toilets (with special

emphasis on women users) in the campus that can be used by workers

(cleaning, construction, domestic...). It would be the most humane thing

to do and would help restore certain dignity to women workers.

Thank you for your consideration. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Ashok Gupta
Raj Sahai
Sushil Handa
Amit Singh