The St. Joseph's Boys High School Canteen is renowned for its variety of snacks, lunches and little treats for the students. Originating from the Old Refectory to then being shifted to the Loyola Sports complex and now being present in the front gate basketball court, the canteen holds memories for the Old Boys and Girls and also for the present batches, never forgotten for its iconic Mango Bejois.
However in the last 3 months of the academic year, students have noticed a hard to miss 50% hike in the price of the once always in demand tetra pack. The price once being a simple 10 rupees has now gone up to 15 rupees. Originally not pondered upon by many but as the terms progressed students noticed that only in very rare scenarios did they receive their 5 rupees back, which is one-third of the price in the first place.
Students were appalled by this and some had more serious outlooks on the situation than others such as Stefan of IX C who stated that “Back in my day drinking Mango bejois wasn’t a luxury, and it shouldn’t be now.”
The canteen now takes the 20 rupees of the students and hands over a Gone Mad or a Glamy Candy, rather than the little piece of nickel.
The price being raised only on the Mango flavoured Bejois juice and not the Apple or the Orange flavours was a clear indicator to students that this is an exploitation of the most demanded and consumed item in the school, and this has led to a huge fall in the consumption the Mango Bejois.
Under the Consumer Goods Act of 2006 customers can be charged below or the same price as the MRP, but cannot be charged over it.
With the Mango Bejois MRP being ₹10 and sold for ₹15 a large number of students’ rights have all been violated under the Act of 2006.
However this was not the only violation of Consumer Goods Violations as the Cup Noodles bought by students for its quick and easy meals having an MRP of ₹35 has been sold by the canteen for ₹40 for the last 3 years. Clearly the canteen thinks that ₹5 means nothing, but this compounds and is not easy for the less privileged students to handle.
This has been going on for nearly two terms till students began to get frustrated such as Nia Naik of XI B “Why has the Bejois price increased so much? Inflation???”.
Nevertheless, no action can be taken by the student body against the canteen.
Students now worry whether Bejois is the next Fruit-chill, which had a 100% increase in price in the last academic year. A simple form of action can be taken by the canteen to resolve this issue by reducing the price of the drink or at the very least have a tub of change kept aside to give back to the students.
To further escalate the present canteen situation, the canteen for the last 3 months has sold students burgers, rolls and subways, in which students have reported 20% ordered to be stale.
Shaun from 9A reported, “I’ve got stale chicken rolls and sandwich so many times after going to the canteen regularly.” Even the ISC students have noticed this, with Laksh JM from 11C saying, “The food is spoilt. The paneer pieces are very hard and its not cooked properly in the Tikka sandwiches.” and Vandhana from XII B backs Laksh in her statement
“I ordered a paneer tikka sub once and there was something really really hard in it, I didn’t know what it was so I just threw it out”.
Not only is the food itself being called a health hazard but students such as Siddarth Vadoth of XI A had the following to say, “The wrapping of the burgers and wraps has ink that easily separates from the paper and goes onto the hand and sometimes even the food.”
A student who wished to not reveal themselves had the following statement shared, “The wraps tend to be stale and oily with the tortilla and fries being rubber like and having only 2-3 chicken pieces. I had given 100 rupees, and after eating it, ended up getting a stomach pain as well”.
Students, when giving their notes for lunch, don't receive their change back for their items purchased. It leads to small amounts being taken away from them such as Zaid from IX C, who shared, “I gave a 100 Rupee note to the canteen staff and asked for a burger, when I asked for the change they said I didn’t give any cash while I'm holding the food given in my hand”. Other students have lost bigger amounts, such as Vandhana from XII B, who narrated. “Canteen uncle told me to come get change during lunch, when I gave him a 500 rupee note. When I came back, I had to fight with him for him to give me the actual amount.”
As these issues grow by the day in our school a few students have tried to take action to ensure that no others have the same bad experiences such as Mythreyi from XII B.
“The burger used to often be spoiled, with a bad odour coming from it. Most of the time we usually go to our classes to eat our food after our purchases. Because we do not get time to go ask for compensation, we used to throw it away after a couple bites. Once, we went during our lunch time to question them about the food. He (one of the canteen workers) simply took what was spoiled and gave another. Since this had been happening for a long time, and I often depend on canteen food to have my break and lunch, I wrote a letter to the vice-principal and gave it to him directly and was informed that he would take the issue up personally.”
These small actions taken by our students slowly help in the reforms for not only future batches but our batches as well.
Written by Antony Yakob Martin, a 11th grader from SJBHS Bengaluru
This article was written for and published in The Josephite Journal, a student-run publication curated by the 11th and 12th graders of St. Joseph's Boys High School, Bengaluru, as part of the Editorial Board Training Program
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