The Pilani campus houses approximately 4000 students spread over 14 hostels located across different parts of the campus. Unlike in the sister campuses, which are equipped with two large messes providing for the gourmet needs of the students, the Pilani campus has nine messes, with each mess catering to about two hostels on average. These messes are supported by about 170 mess workers, and are managed by a 15-member body of students, the Society for Student Mess Services (SSMS).
Towards the daily functioning of the mess, there exist three organisations working in tandem – SSMS, the BITS administration, and Sodexo, the MNC employed by SSMS charged with training mess workers to meet quality standards, procuring raw materials required for the day’s food, preparing fortnightly menus and conducting planned hygiene checks. In contrast, SSMS’s role is to monitor and oversee all operations, including meeting the employees’ HR needs, ensuring judicious disbursement of funds, balancing the menu to reflect student preferences, etc. The Institute looks after all infrastructural requirements and acts as a constant to complement the transient nature of students’ involvement – the SSMS members, on an average, serve a term of one year.
Every mess consists of a Mess Manager, Storekeeper and various types of utility workers – sweepers, workers on washing duty, general utility and chapati makers, and a cook. Further, cooking is centralised and is done by senior cooks at the Central Kitchen in the Rana Pratap – Ashok Mess, which is followed by the distribution of food to all satellite kitchens to ensure uniformity in taste.
The menu, consisting of roti-sabzi and rice, changes little, but sweets – from barfis to jalebis, all cooked on campus – help break the monotony. The three meals are reasonably priced, adding up to around Rs. 115 a day. Students disinterested in the day’s food generally head to the “Pitstop”, a counter inside the mess selling snacks (which are otherwise not provided in the mess), soft-drinks, and ice-cream, in addition to extra curd, milk and non-veg, which are not included in the meal.
As with any large scale operation, it’s nigh impossible to constantly control quality. However, SSMS looks into complaints on a case-by-case basis. Depending on the gravity of the situation and the extent of damage caused, adequate punitary measures are taken, including the setting up of enquiry committees, issuance of show-cause notices and pursuant monetary reparations.
The mess system in Pilani has had a turbulent history. The Students’ Mess Committee was constituted in the wake of student protests in the 1970s The body oversaw a more decentralized operation, with Mess Managers individually contracting local caterers. This grossly inefficient operation culminated in the switch to Sodexo in 2012. However, workers agitated fearing for their jobs, and instances of financial irregularities resulted in SMC’s dissolution, and SSMS’s formation and registration under the Rajasthan Societies Act(1958).
Early this semester, it circulated a form requesting the feedback of the students regarding the food in the messes, and asking opinions as to what changes to make in the menu. Despite the initial opposition it faced, the SSMS seems to have changed the minds of students and mess workers alike for the better.