(The report by Hamara Manch below appeared online on Nirvak IITK first).

With students returning to campus the hall messes have started to run in a phased manner. There are two kinds of messes – one which is run primarily for the quarantined students and four others which are for students who have started to reside in their hostels after completing the mandatory quarantine period. 

From December 2020 the Hall 5 mess, which supplied meals to the quarantine students, also started catering to the residents of RA Hostel. As is expected the mess is run with very different protocols given the extraordinary situation. The work involved is much more especially because of the food being cooked at one location and having to be packed, transported and delivered to three other halls, four times a day. Care is taken that the food reaches the students on time and the menu is an elaborate fare as would be evident from Appendix 1. In an earlier report we had shown how that translated to a much longer and intense workday for the workers, both those who prepared the meals and those who served them to the quarantine halls. But the present system which has been enforced in Hall 5 takes it to a very different level. As this report details below, kitchen workers in Hall 5 have a 17 hour work day in this biting cold, from 4.30 am to 9.30 pm, with barely an hour break in between.

Running of Hall 5 Mess

• • The mess provides packed breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner to quarantine students and on counter meals for RA Tower residents. 

  • Initially there were 270 quarantine students and about 80 RA tower residents and a few coupon meals. Additionally there are the office staff and 30 workers – 15 for preparation of meals and 15 for packing and distribution, making a total of over 400 people who had cooked food in the mess.  

  • Subsequently the number of quarantine students increased to 314 and about 130 RA residents plus around 15 regular coupon meals.  Then there were 30 workers (15 for preparation and 15 for packing/distribution) and an additional 10 (6 workers and 4 managerial/supervisory staff) apparently to cater for the RA residents and the office staff, making the total number of around 500 people. The following is the work schedule of the workers.

Apparently the upcoming quarantine batch to commence on 1st February, 2021 would have over 400 students but the number of workers deployed for catering to them would continue to be the same 30.

Workers Involved in Preparation of Meals 

As mentioned above there are two sets of workers in this category and they have a slightly different time schedule and significantly different wages:

Workers for catering to quarantine students

• • 15 workers selected from across multiple halls specifically for quarantine students.

  • They prepare the meals and put out on the counter to be packed by the other set of workers. 

  • All the cooking work including for the RA tower residents is done by these workers. They also serve the RA Tower residents who come and eat in the hall. Further they clean the premises including dining area, pantry, stores, kitchen, the vessels and all other work necessary to run the mess.

  • They sign in for work at 4.30 am and finish work only at about 9.30  pm. Which means they start at 4 am from their houses and reach back only by 10 pm, provided they stay in the neighbourhood just outside the Institute campus.

  • One of the workers used to cycle from 15 kms away, he started from his home at 3.30 am and reached by 11 pm (he was allowed to leave half an hour early). He had requested to be allowed to stay in the campus but was not permitted. 

  • They get barely an hour break in the entire 17 hour work day. When some women workers requested to be allowed to come in slightly later than 4.30 am, the manager told them ‘there was no compulsion for them to work, they can choose not to, there will be others who can replace them’. And this is in the peak of the winter.

  • Workers were paid the minimum wages for a regular day (no overtime) at Rs 639/- per day.

Workers designated for RA Tower residents

• • Initially the 15 workers who prepared meals for the quarantine students were forced to make the additional meals for the RA Tower residents and also serve them. They were paid Rs 1302/- extra for the fifteen days of extra work. 

  • Subsequently 6 more workers were employed to assist in RA Tower meals. Of these workers one helps in cleaning vessels, one for cleaning the premises, two for rolling out rotis and two to serve on the counter. All the workers have been personally recruited by the Hall 5 mess manager and have been earlier working in Hall 5 regular mess.

  • This set comes in at 6- 6.30 am in the morning and leaves around 10 pm in the night.

  • These workers are paid Rs 300/- per day, less than half of the stipulated minimum wages. The logic given for this gross underpayment being that these workers have already done their stipulated stint in the messes[1] hence would be willing to work for this reduced payment. This also results in bulk of the work being done by the quarantine designated workers. 

Thus essentially these 21 (15 + 6) workers cater to the entire messing needs (excluding serving) of around 500  people, which was done by around 40 mess workers during regular functioning of halls before the pandemic[2]. No wonder they are forced to put in inhumanly long working hours with no break.  Appendix 2 gives a breakup of the workday.

[1]As part of the Institute policy to employ mess workers by rotation so that everyone gets at least some employment as the messes restart.

[2]The packing and distribution is an added activity which is not relevant to the regular functioning of messes and are handled by a separate group of workers hence not included in this comparison.

Packing and Distribution of Meals 

• • Fourteen workers and one manager selected across multiple halls are employed for packing and distribution of 4 meals per day to the quarantine students put up in 3 halls – Hall 4, Hall 9 and Hall 12.

  • They stay within the campus for the entire quarantine period and in fact there is supposed to be no direct contact with the food preparation workers.

  • They report at 5.30 am to Hall 5 and leave only around 9.30 pm in the night. And in the interim period they pack and distribute three meals and one tea to the quarantine students. Packing takes up to an hour and a half for each meal and distribution takes a minimum of 2 hours each time. They have to reach the meals to every room across the hall and across floors, in trolleys and flasks (for tea/milk). Adding the time required for them in transit to and from the various halls, have their own meals and cleaning up the packing space they manage to get a couple of hours of break in a 16 hour workday.  

Living conditions of Workers Staying within the Campus for the Quarantine Period

The idea of retaining the packing/distribution workers for the entire quarantine period probably was to ensure further safety of the students kept in isolation. In the first few batches these workers were provided separate rooms in a designated hostel to ensure social distancing. But the arrangement at present is as follows:

• • All 15 workers are put up in a common room in Hall 5. 

  • They are provided a cot and a bare mattress, and are supposed to get their own bedding and blankets. 

  • They did not have access to drinking water in the Hall after the mess closed.  

  • They were not provided a bucket or mug. They managed to get one bucket and mug later from the hall office which was shared by all of them.

  • Their bathrooms did not have hot water hence they could barely wash themselves let alone their clothes.

Some Questions about the Arrangement

• • Institute seems to have made an elaborate arrangement for bringing back students safely to the campus with detailed planning about its execution. And yet in a plan which is completely dependent on the workers why was such little thought given to ensure dignified working and living conditions for the workers?  

  • With over 700 mess workers seeking to be employed why did the Institute not employ more workers instead of making the workers work for over 16-17 hours? 

  • And why has the Institute allowed workers to be employed at half the legal minimum wages? 

Appendix1: Weekly Menu of Hall V Mess