MUMBAI: You will find company in students from the country’s premier tech institute, if you think your canteen serves tasteless food. Over 950 kg of food is wasted on an average in a day at IIT-Bombay, stated a report by the students’ magazine. The students, through an NGO, found the amount wasted at the institute daily can feed 300 children.

The report mainly blamed the wastage on “miscalculated estimates by caterers” and “students’ hopefulness for tasty food which more often than not turns out to be tasteless”.

The report found special food items like non-vegetarian dishes, sweets, salads, generally do not contribute to the wastage as much as staple food like dal, rice and vegetables. “Examples of students throwing plates full of food are common,” says the students’ magazine, Insight .

Data compiled by the institute from 2011, which students quoted in the report, states the institute wasted 952 kg of food daily on an average. After 2011, most hostel messes were privatised, so wastage should have gone down. But with addition of two new hostels, it remains almost the same. The report added the ‘it’s not my problem’ attitude of students was responsible for the wastage.

Currently, some of the wasted food is put to use in a biogas plant, which generates energy that is supplied to hostel 3. However, as most hostels do not follow a waste segregation policy, the solution can’t be implemented across board. “Allowing donation of leftover food can be one solution, but students on the campus need to act more responsibly to avoid the wastage,” said Niranjan Thakurdesai, one of the chief editors of Insight.

Soumyo Mukherji, dean of students’ affairs, agreed there should be more awareness to dissuade students from wasting food. “To some extent there can be punitive measures, but beyond that awareness over how it hurts society in general is essential,” he said. From November, the institute is allowing students to pay only for what they want to eat, but the system’s success can be reviewed only after six months.

