Stewards from leading hotels of the country recently came together to launch the Stewarding Association of India (SAI). While the association was active in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi since 2008, it was decided to launch it nationally at the recently held awards function in Delhi.
The target date for the launch of the association was set as 15 December prior to which a series of meetings in Delhi/NCR had done the rounds between 2008-2012.
During the meeting of the association, key office bearers were elected, which include Aparesh Sinha of ITC Hotels & Resorts (President); Subrata Mukherjee of Lalit Hospitality (Vice President); and Suresh Malhotra from Oberoi Hotels & Resorts (General Secretary).
Speaking to India Hospitality Review, Pardeep Rana, Executive Chief Steward of Leela Kempinski, Gurgaon and the Founder President of Steward Association said that the objective of the Association was to inculcate a sense of bonding and share best practices and address manpower issues and thereby help improve standards of service delivery of stewards at par with global standards.
The stewarding team will help stewards from across the country in the fields of equipment design & development, R&D, cost control, improved communication through partnering & sharing of best practices, manpower needs & benchmarking for quality on global scale.
“Stewarding Department till now has quite narrowly been perceived as confined to the cleaning of back-of-house areas, little realizing that a large portion of its operations also consists of administrative works like F & B inventory, Departmental Budgeting, Equipment Procurement, Trainings, Chemical & Fuel handling, Cleaning Machines & Cost Efficiency in F&B Operations,” Rana said.