Fate of a new canteen (An Old Story)

The ventilation system in Nandhinee Canteen has a lot to be desired. I am even not sure if we should call it as a ventilation system. Mere fitting of four five exhaust fans has not served the purpose of providing proper ventilation. The hall is mostly hot throughout the day. The workers are most suffered by the heat. One can easily make out from how they look gloomy and sweaty. The life of guys making and serving tea must be like hell. They spend almost twelve hours surrounded by at least four burners boiling milk, water and tea. The temperature at that place must be close to 45 deg C. One need not take thermometer to the place to counter this guess of temperature but he is just required to go and have a tea from the place!

The canteen is the most happening place in the campus after Central Dining Facility. But over the years there is no improvement in its infrastructure. It wears the same old look as it used to have twenty years back. I’m told that some time back there was a talk of building a new canteen. But alas! Engineering Unit estimated the cost of over Rs 70 lakh and the idea was discarded for the high cost involved.

It will be quite interesting to check which five-star facility was kept in mind by our able engineers in the Engineering Office while making that estimate. Even more interesting will be to find out the existence of any other factor which made our able engineers to give an extravagant estimate!

Dish TV for hostels on 1st July... Quite possible!

We are in position to use DTH connection from 1st July itself at least in three hostels. CCW has gone a step ahead and said that as soon as individual hostel council comes up with a letter mentioning their decision for the change from cable connection to DTH connection he will release funds for Dish TV installation.

Cauvery Hostel Council is ready with the letter. Vishwas has acted very quickly to prepare the letter and get signatures of hostel secretaries. Dhanasekaran of Krishna will come up with letter in two days. Sarath of Brahmaputra also is acting quickly. I have told Sarayu guys and they also are willing. I am told that Sharav GenSec has gone on the vacation. Same case with most other GenSecs.

Street illumination report

After breakfast I thought of meeting CSO. He was there. Main purpose of meeting him was to remind him about the copy of their survey for street illumination. He anyway remembered my purpose. He has informed that already tendering process is started by Engineering Unit. He would send the copy to me on Monday. I also wanted to know if he was informed about an accident that took place near the main gate. A Maruti Omni van driver lost control and hit the tree on the first corner. I was passing by within a minute or two. Fortunately no one was injured. The damage to the car was considerable. A security personnel arrived at the accident spot and handled the situation. He informed CSO duely.

Apart from these we talked about some other points including people talking on mobile when riding bicycle/motorcycle, rash driving of bus drivers, bus driver talking on phone while driving, green bicycles etc. We talked for about half an hour. Quite a nice meeting it was.

Vegetarian mess

In the same meeting we (DoS, CCW and myself) talked about the possibility of a seperate vegetarian mess. DoS seems to be inclined to it. To address some reservations from CCW we may have to take up a survey amongst students to show that there is a large number of students who want a seperate vegetarian mess.

Central Dining Facility

I raised issues in the Dining Facility kitchen (breakdown of cold storage, ventilation system) with DoS and CCW in a meeting today afternoon. While answering it CCW informed about the action being taken. DoS has suggested him to enter into AMC for maintenance wotk of these types.

CCW also has asked me to come up with a common menu and a quality assessment procedure, both to be attached with the request for quotations from caterers. The former should be decided by mess secretaries in consultation with myself and HAS and the later should be prepared by myself and HAS after inviting suggestions from secretaries.

I decided to visit DoS's office casually. But the visit turned out to be fruitful. I really wonder why this was not discussed earlier. The comment from CCW if I had gone on a vacation sounded bizzare. I had to tell him that I met DoS almost every other day! :)

Visit to kitchen of Dining Facility

Today afternoon tea was followed by visit to kitchen in the Dining Facility. We've found that ventilation system needs a complete servicing. It must be a tough time for the workers during the peak hours as temperature must be reaching well above the bearable limit. We are told that the system is out of order since a month.

Cold storage needs immediate attention in order to eliminate present frequent repairs. Also one of the lifts doesn't have doors on both floors. It makes it unsafe for the workers especially in darkness. Bhushan has informed that the insect flashers also are not put on since a long time.

I also have noticed that the Nandhinee Canteen hall also is not properly ventilated. Especially the persons serving tea suffer most. On an average the temperature in the hall is high due to improper ventilation.

Introducing DTH in the campus

As mentioned earlier, we are planning to replace cable connection from Staff Club by DTH connection (Dish TV) . Yesterday Gyan, Gen Sec of Brahmaputra appriciated the idea and asked me to talk to AW of his hostel. Just some time back I talked to AW of Brahmaputra about DTH for hostels. He will be talking to the Warden soon.

This completes the initial talks with Gen Secs Vikas, Dhanasekaran and Gyan of Kaverie, Krishna and Brahmaputra hostels. Vikas wants a meeting with myself and Kaverie's Warden which we can have any time. Can we bring this to reality from 1st of July? Sounds possible.

Visit of Malayala Manorama Journalists

Yesterday DoS called and asked me to meet journalists from Malayala Manorama. I was away from the campus then so the meeting was fixed to take place on Tuesday morning. He had also asked me to get one Malayalie UG along with me for the meeting. He was not able to get anybody.

This Malayalie daily wants to create some awareness in State of Kerala potential upgradation of Kochin University in coming future. So journalists want to get information and they wanted to talk to our students.

Today we had that meeting. Earlier I had contacted many Malayalie UGs for the same but found that suddenly all of them who ever was in the campus were preoccupied. After I reached the Office with Harshit somehow we got Zuloo (an UG) and Suma (a PG) both Malayalie for the discussion. Anyway it was a informal and nice discussion. They took some photographs around. Then we took them for lunch and then bid them good bye.