Hamara Manch. October 2022

Summary

Many of us have encountered the large, ponderous truck slowly trudging the roads of the Institute and all of us have heard it even if we have not seen it. Apparently, this new truck and over half a dozen other less obtrusive machines would revolutionise road cleaning in our campus by mechanising it. Further it apparently is in keeping with the cost-cutting effort which the Institute has been emphasising recently. Hamara Manch tried to assess the implications and implementation of the new contract. We decided to follow the daily routine of the road cleaning truck along with the other machines for a day to appreciate the change. We talked to the workers and supervisors about their work – both in the earlier system and the new one. We also attempted to understand the logic of the change by the Institute through the tenders floated for the work which were available in the public domain. Our analysis suggests that the new contract seems to have replaced an effectively working system perfected over years with a dispensation which increases carbon footprint, increases cost to the Institute, causes serious noise pollution, leads to job losses and does not even give a better performance.