The elections for the posts of President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Society for Student Mess Services (SSMS) took place in the conference room behind VKB Mess on the 21nd of November 2018. Two candidates contested the posts of President and Treasurer, with three contesting the Secretary position. Satwadhi Das was elected President, with Praneetha Chavana and Anubhav Pandey being elected Treasurer and Secretary respectively. The English Press Club spoke to the new President in an attempt to understand the workings of SSMS and his plans for the future.
Satwadhi stated that the primary concern for SSMS at the moment was the lack of a formal channel of communication between members of the outgoing and incoming batches. Regular changes in the Governing Council (GC)—consisting of nine Mess Representatives (MessReps), four members from the Advisory and Monitoring Committee (AMC), and two ex-officio members—make it difficult for new members to grasp the diverse workings of the body.
Since SSMS is divided into five committees—Finance, Human Resources (HR), Grub, Menu, and Quality Health Safety Environment (QHSE)—Satwadhi believes his primary duty is to frame a charter for each committee, detailing its working. He stated that this would smoothen the transition process each year and make SSMS more efficient. While no formal framework exists right now, he has started work on these charters and expects them to be completed by next semester.
He also went on to claim that worker issues that crop up throughout the semester had not been resolved appropriately in the past, as both AMC members and MessReps hadn’t been fully aware of SSMS guidelines. He provided an example where an ailing mess worker—who would have to leave Pilani for treatment—could not be given an immediate guarantee that SSMS would cover his medical costs, despite SSMS having a medical plan in place to deal with such contingencies. While he would try to ensure that all GC members are well versed with SSMS guidelines, other possible solutions include making the President or the HR committee head more accessible to the workers. He was also considering monthly interactions, where workers could air their concerns to the GC.
Transparency has been a major issue with SSMS in the past, with the inner functioning of the body opaque to the majority of students. Satwadhi agreed that this had been a concern and has decided to address it by revamping the feedback system and shifting to an interactive online portal instead of a feedback register. The GBM shall be able to provide feedback to individual members of the GC and each complaint shall receive a personalised response. He also mentioned that the manifesto points of every GC member, and their progress in implementing those points, would be uploaded on the portal. According to the SSMS MoA, the body is also supposed to have a GBM meet every semester. While a meet hasn’t been held in the last few years due to poor attendance by the GBM in the past, Satwadhi plans to change the status quo in his tenure.
Despite all the talk of transparency, Satwadhi refused to speak about all the changes he wants to bring about as President, deeming them to be internal SSMS issues and not appropriate for disclosure to the GBM.
Satwadhi was also asked about an event during MessRep elections, earlier this semester. SSMS EC—the body in charge of all SSMS elections—had imposed a five percent vote cut for a campaigning violation, and that had proven to be decisive in determining the outcome of the election. Controversy arose as the SSMS EC’s charter did not contain guidelines for campaigning violations, and there was no precedent for similar punitive action. While SSMS EC failed to provide any justification for the lack of guidelines, they did state that they plan on amending the charter and making it more comprehensive. Satwadhi agreed that the SSMS EC needs to step up and have a comprehensive framework in place to deal with both MessRep elections and internal voting. However, he believed that SSMS EC should work with the Institute, and the GC should not be directly involved in the process as that would result in a conflict of interest.