This facility was restored in a couple of weeks’ time with an additional rider. The access to the washing machines was to be supervised and a charge was to be paid for its usage. The supervision/regulation of the usage of the washing machines is justified as the machines had been damaged earlier due to misuse.
However, the charges being levied for a basic facility like the washing machines is completely unfair as it amounts to an unjustified overhead expenditure; this on grounds that the students have already paid a whopping sum as fees for the semester which includes the grossly hiked electricity and the maintenance charges. It should also be noted that already existing staff is being employed to supervise the washing facility.
Going by simple logic, everything that makes life easier for the students and helps one’s pursuit of academic and extra- curricular activities is a basic facility. Hence this would include the washing machines, the gym, yoga classes, parking facilities, health centre, accessible open spaces, drinkable water, nutritious food etc. Being a premier institute it is the responsibility of the institute to make these facilities accessible to students of all sections. Provisions like paid basic facilities will lead to a ‘systematic exclusion’ of the students from certain sections of the society and eventually create a divide among the students.
This commercialization of college facilities has larger exclusionary implications. The convention centre is a case in point. Because of the high charges for the facility (Rs 40,000 per day) only those courses which can attract corporate sponsorship can access it. This implies that the access to the facilities depends on the market value and the saleability of the course which could have adverse bearing on the academic rigor of any event and the orientation of the course at large (This issue will be dealt with at length in a later post).
When the administration was approached to request the withdrawal of the charges, the old tactic of long drawn negotiations was initiated again. It is high time that the students began to consciously avoid these traps of misleading negotiations. Issues like the undue extraction of money have to be resisted undoubtedly. A failure to resist now would only encourage the administration to further commercialize the most basic facilities offered to the students.
-Shray Mehta, Vaibhav Raaj
I am not sure if you could call washing machines basic facilities. That would be too much of a stretch and perhaps deflect from the larger point you are making.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, the post does raise the critical issue of the undemocractic, arbitrary ways in which the institute seems to work.
in this instance, residents of new campus hostel were not informed by the wardens or through a notice that the washing machines would be removed. if there were indeed problems, a meeting with residents could have yielded more constructive solutions than merely depriving everyone of a convienience that one has gotten used to.
also, there seems to be no explanation of why a service that was formerly free is now being charged for. explain to us and perhaps we could arrive at a more consensual decision about the usage of these machines. one hopes it is not too much to expect out of an institute so higly rated by the accreditation body!
swati,
ReplyDeletewhat i understand of your logic is that if one can do without some facility, like the washing machines, then it can not be counted as a basic facility. however, one can also do without purified water, the gym, the yoga classes, the basket ball court and even the health center. so, one, does that imply that they are not basic facilities too? so should one be asked to pay for them? if your answer is yes then i would disagree here. the amount paid by the students as fees justifies the demand for these 'basic facilities'.
ummm... my argument wasnt that washing machines arent necessary. it is a convenience. one that could most of us would do with. but i m not convinced about its nature of being a basic necessity.
ReplyDeletepurified water on the other hand is a basic necessity and so are other facilities that help people maintain a sense of well being.
of course no one wants to pay for a facility that was free earlier. but if payment is such an imperative, i m asking the admin to give me convincing reasons. and not make arbitrary decisions
The whole point is that in the facade of claiming the status of an institution "with outstanding facilities" the admin definitely uses the "hostels with washing machines" as there USP. Which no doubt adds to what we pay as hostel fees. Besides, I understand that these sensitive little machines get non-functional due to rough handling. So you take them outside the hands of students, put them together in a room and keep a man for operating it...But where the hell is the 15 RS/6 Kg funda coming from...it's mind boggling!
ReplyDeleteHi Shray,
ReplyDeleteHaving read the post, all I can really suggest here is that the way to proceed from this point on is not to harp so much on the 'basic facility' argument as much as to question what was so wrong with the previous arrangement.
The fact that students would have to pay for any repair work was not at all a contested point - I'm personally not aware of anyone who had issues with contributing to the maintenance of the machines to deal with the damage due to rough/ excessive use. With this tacit agreement in place, one wonders what caused the authorities to intervene completely arbitrarily. This last bit is what calls for questioning.
As a pure tactical point, it is better to ask for reasons for this change first and then offer your own for immproving the new system. There is no sense in entering into discussions about what constitutes 'basic facilities' - nothing but muddy waters there. If one can argue that there was no real reason for this alternate system in the first place, one will also hopefully be able to gauge from the authorities why the huge amounts we pay as fees fail to pay for services such as the washing machines. And if, in fact, the costs incurred in providing these services are irrecoverable from our fee amount, then why the h*ll were they set up in the first place? I doubt that any student ever 'demanded' washing machines on campus.
Know what I mean?