A letter to Asha Jadeja Motwani

From: Citizens' Forum, IIT Kanpur

To: Asha Jadeja Motwani

CC: DRPG, IITKF

Subject: Motwani Bhavan

Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2012 21:17:21 +0000

Dear Mrs. Jadeja Motwani,

I am writing on behalf of the Citizens’ Forum of a group of alumni from IIT Kanpur. We have been very concerned with violation of human rights of contract workers at our Alma Mater. Consequently, we have been working to bring those issues forward and sensitize the IITK administration and alumni at large.

We are specifically writing to you because with a generous gift from you and the family, Motwani Bhavan is being constructed at our IITK campus. As alumni, we are grateful. 

In last 19 months, there have been four deaths of construction workers at various sites on the IITK campus. This is due to totally unacceptable safety conditions prevailing at the sites. Such a high incidence of deaths will be a scandal in North America but is even unusually high for India. That it happens at a world class engineering institute, which is our Alma Mater, is of course very shocking. Two deaths have taken place in last 6 weeks. In both cases workers fell from a height. They were neither attached with safety harnesses nor was there a net to break the fall. 

Three days after the last death, some volunteers took some pictures at the Motwani Bhavan construction site, where to our surprise lax safety and security practices continue. I am enclosing the pictures for your review. We do not wish that every building becomes a site with possibility of a death by falling from a height.

We have been communicating as much as possible with the administration. We are hoping that you may also want to express this serious concern to the Director (███@iitk.ac.in) with a copy to DRPG (███@iitk.ac.in ) of the Institute.

With our best regards,

Sushil Handa, (1966 batch)

Citizens’ Forum of IITK alumni

c.c. Dr. Manindra Agrawal (███@iitk.ac.in)

Mr. Abhay Bhushan (███@aol.com)

Attachment: Motwani Bhavan Construction Site