Wardens oppose State government’s move to centralise kitchen for hostels
Tamil Nadu Backward Class, Most Backward Class and Minorities Hostel Wardens Welfare Association opposed the State government’s decision to centralise kitchen facilities for all government hostels.
Opposing the move during a association meeting here on Saturday, they said it will lead to cooks employed in the hostels losing their jobs. “Not only the issue of employees losing jobs, but also the taste, variety and quality of the food items cooked for students may get affected when a huge amount of food is to be cooked in a single location and transported to various places,” they added.
“Privatisation of the cooking works may further lead to officials losing control over ensuring quality of food,” they said.
“While there are already about 460 postings of cook and 1,150 postings of night security jobs vacant, the government instead of fulfilling the complete workforce is further bringing down the workers’ strength,” alleged L. Sahadevan, founder of the association.
Pinning the blame on the government for not taking proper care in allocation of funds for the hostels, he said that it was not okay to blame wardens for everything starting from food to infrastructure, when the system itself was flawed in its perception of viewing hostels as less important, usually second to most other things.
“Regarding infrastructure, unlike other government buildings it is not enough to repair hostel buildings once in three years as thousands of students use them regularly in all days of year. The regular use could bring down the quality of the building, so, yearly repair works become necessary,” he added.
The cleaning workers employed in the hostels with a monthly pay of ₹3,000 should be made permanent to ensure them a better pay, Mr. Sahadevan noted.
“They do some of the hardest jobs of cleaning and mopping the hostels and toilets, but when they are paid the least how are we supposed to get work done from them,” he said.
Speaking about unexpected and miscellaneous expenditures for the hostel, he said that for expenditures like paying transport charges, among others, the wardens were spending from their pockets and were able to reimburse only during the yearly fund allocation.
“There needs to be a separate head in the fund allocation for miscellaneous expenditures,” they demanded.
They demanded to allow them to buy groceries and other goods through Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation to protect them from discrepancies during internal audit procedures.
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