The ID card payment system at private eateries on campus—ANC, Food King, and Looters—was revoked at the beginning of the semester. In order to understand the rationale behind this change, The English Press Club spoke to Saikrishna K., President of the SSMS, and Satyansh Rai, President of the SU.

The primary reason was complaints made by parents that their wards were spending indiscriminately. ‘Some students spend about ₹40,000-50,000 per semester, and that’s huge’, said Saikrishna. He said that when questioned by parents about this, wards often claim that they have been fake signed. The administration does not want to be put in a position where they have to decide between the words of students who claim that they have been fake signed, and food vendors, who claim to have not done anything wrong. Therefore, the change is aimed at reducing the occurrence of fake signings.

Another reason provided was financial constraints. Each student pays an amount of ₹22,000 as mess advance in the beginning of the semester, giving the Institute a sum of money to work with. However, over the course of a semester, if students make purchases more than this sum, the Institute ends up footing the bill and needs to pay the extra amount to food vendors; the Institute is compensated only when students settle their dues at the very end of the semester. Saikrishna said that the Institute lacks funds already, and paying this extra credit to food vendors puts further strain on their resources.

Further, Satyansh spoke of how the Institute did not want students who had outstanding dues in their mess accounts to miss out on registration. Very often, a student is forced to register late even if s/he owes an insignificant amount to private eateries. He also felt that after the fee-hike protests, making the fees at the beginning of each semester look smaller by not including the bill from the previous one, might be one of the Institute’s motives.

Preliminary estimates have shown that the revenues of private eateries have fallen drastically. Saikrishna said that ANC averaged sales of around two lakhs per day in the previous semester. Looters and Food King made about ₹80,000 and ₹40,000 respectively. ‘Average of last week in ANC was ₹60,000. Food king was ₹10,000 or ₹15,000. I’m not sure about -301, it will only be a few thousand. Looters will be around ₹35,000-₹40,000’, he said. He also expressed that food vendors were very unhappy about the change. While the food joints are still profitable, the profits have fallen.The Institute does not lose any money, since they receive the same rent as before.

At the start of the semester, cash was the only mode of payment, but ANC and Looters mode of payment with PayTM recently introduced as an alternative. Both Satyansh and Saikrishna confirmed that grub and t-shirt signings at messes will continue as normal, with the amount being charged to the students’ mess accounts. ID cards will continue to be accepted at Akshay, since it falls under the purview of the Birla Educational Trust. Further, ID cards will continue to be accepted at Pit-Stops when they open.

Saikrishna stated that he was actively working on resolving the issue. The solution that he proposed was imposing an upper cap on ID card expenditure. ‘It is better than having no ID card at all.’ Satyansh said that even if ID cards didn’t work out, the SU would lobby for some form of cashless transactions – a separate card for the food outlets alone was an option on the table. The student representatives are set to attend meetings with the administration to discuss solutions. These meetings will likely comprise of the Chief Warden, the Director, the Dean of Administration, food vendors, and student representatives. While this group will negotiate regarding the upper cap, Saikrishna said that it will largely be up to the administration. This meeting was scheduled to happen earlier, but was delayed due to changes in high administrative positions.