[Salarpuria Greenage] Cuddles exorbitant charges

Bipul Raj (Registered Owner, KA-xxxx) (Committee Member) wrote:

Cuddles and SS Management,

Several residents of Salarpuria Greenage had a meeting last Sunday to discuss Cuddles charges and quality issues over growing concerns on Cuddle exorbitant charges which is affecting our basic right to utilize creche facility inside our own residential complex for which we have paid our hard earned money and made Salarpuria Greenage a grand successful project in Bangalore. Further to not being able to utilize basic service, it is affecting day to day life of all working parents who have to now look outside or helplessly pay exorbitant charge demanded by Cuddles.

We as one voice of all residents in Greenage raise our severe concerns over Cuddles exorbitant charges and call for a discussion with Cuddles management and/or SS management to negotiate the charges and find both short term and long term solution of the problem which is badly affecting our day to day life.

So please let us know if you are willing to meet all residents on coming Sunday (29th May) in Greenage Creche itself around 11am in the morning. We want to discuss this over weekend only so that most of concerned residents can join. I hope cuddle and SS management can afford some time on Sunday to listen to plight of several residents who are their esteemed customers. In case coming Sunday 11:00am is not possible, please suggest an alternate convenient time to meet all residents of Greenage.

Bipul Raj

KA-xxxx, Salarpuria Greenage

PS: - Below I am summarizing the discussion severals concerned residents had. We organized the discussion under following four below topics: (Fellow Residents, please feel free to add to it if I missed anything)

1) History of residents involvement in selecting creche vendor:

• This topic discussion was driven by Butun and Prashant who told us that they had formed a creche selection committee and had explored several creche working over weekend.
• The creche selection committee had shortlisted 4 creche service providers and cuddle was one of them.
• Creche selection committee has laid out several guidelines to be enforced, few relevants are:
• The creche charges for Greenage should be 15% less than the market rate
• The charges must be fixed in the beginning and should not increase for 3 years
• Security and no transport for creche facility in Greenage should not be excuse of any extra charges, as we have already invested our hard earned money in the complex and on on top of that we pay maintenance charges which includes costs for security in the complex       

• But unfortunately, final decision was unanimously taken by SS management only ignoring guidelines laid out by Creche committee and without taking consent & without involving creche selection committee members formed by residents.

2) Analyzing Cuddles charges and compare it with outside creche:

• To start with we analayzed Cuddle day care charges including how much it was increased from last year.
• Cuddle fee structure is totally unjustified which leads to eventually very high charges.
• For example, refer to attached "cuddles fee structure 2016" document, basic quarterly half day care for "12 weeks to 22 months" is 22,500, but that is only from 1pm to 6:30 pm. And for additional extended half an hour Rs 4500 and moreover Rs. 3000 maintenance fees and Rs. 9000 2-times food charges quarterly. To add to everything Rs. 5000 admission fee + Rs. 500 application fees and Rs. 7000 day care kit. So fixed monthly costs comes to Rs. 13000 and one time cost Rs. 12500, just for half day care facility.
• If you refer to the cuddles charges in 2015, attached "Cuddles_Daycare_Fees structure_2015.pdf", corresponding charges were Rs. 21000 basic (7% to 9% increased in 2016), Rs. 3000 Extended half an hours (50% increased in 2016), Rs. 3000 maintenance (same in 2016) +  Rs. 7500 2-times meals (20% increased in 2016), Rs. 6500 daycare (7.7% increased in 2016), Rs. 5000 Admission fess and Rs. 500 Application fees (Same in 2016).
•  So in 2015 corresponding cuddle charges were Rs. 11500 monthly  (13% to 15% increased in 2016) and one time cost Rs. 12000 (4% increased in 2016).

• Cuddle fee structure is totally unjustified and unreasonable, compared to what creche outside are charging.
• None of the creche outside even in HSR layout has this kind of fee structure resulting to such a high fees of basic day care facility. 
• For most of the creche outside day care include timing 8:am to 8:00 pm and fee ranges from Rs. 6000 to Rs. 8500 per month including food, without any admission, application and day care kit charges.
• I have enquired in Elly Child care, they just take Rs. 6500 per month for 8am to 8pmincluding full day food. NO additional one time charge for admission, application and day care kit.
• Creche outside provides beds and just asks parent to provide bedsheet and pillow, so that there is NO charge for day care kit. There is no reason to take any such exorbitant charge like Rs. 7000 for day care kit.
• One more example (refer to attached cherubs.jpg), cherubs in hsr layout, Just Rs. 6000 for half day care (from 12:30pm to 7:30 pm) and no additional one time or day care kit charges.
• One of the resident sending his kid to Cera in hsr is paying Rs. 8500 per month for full day care including food. He was thinking to admit his kid in cuddles, but after knowing such  exorbitant charges by cuddle, he was really worried that how living is such a nice complex is at all useful.

• Given all these day, no one would deny that Cuddles is taking unreasonably exorbitant charges. Moreover, as mentioned by few residents per hour charges for holiday or for any urgent situation is Rs. 200 per hour which is also too high. If you compare cherubs.jpg, per day charge is just Rs. 700 for 9am to 7:30pm.

• To top all these, cuddles has also indicated to parents that there will be increase fees for coming year also. They are already talking around double the charges compared to outside. We need find a solution to bring it down to half.

             

3) Cuddles Quality issue and other concerns:

• Overall people are fine with quality but there were some concerns:
• Not all staff are trained
• Facility not upto the mark compared to cuddles in HSR layout, though rate of both are equally exorbitant.
• HSR cuddles are powered by Educomp with more learning instrument, but that is not the case of cuddles in Greenage who are saving franchisees fees here.
• There should be SMS facility to update parents
• Creche facility Should start by 8:00am and run till 8:00pm. There are working people who go early and come late. Cuddles is of no use for them.
• After 6pm kids are just left with maids
• Cuddle should provide facility to pick kids from Greenage main gate for after school day care facility
• Staff/teacher to Kids ratio should be better. For example, it 1:16 in cuddle day care. In most the creche outside it is 1:7 for day care.
• Timing should be little flexible. In bangalore traffic, it is impossible for parents to guarantee a fixed time to pick kids back.

4) Next Steps:

• Ask cuddle and SS management to benchmark market rate of Creche outside, and present the data to all residents.
• Short term - Negotiate charges with Cuddle and SS management to bring it par with market rate
• Long term - Work with SS management to reduce rentals so that more benefits can be passed to residents to ensure creche charges are 15% less in Greenage compared to market rate. Overall we understand that more than 30% load goes to rental. The creche place should not be treated as commercial place, rather rent should be fixed same as per square feet apartment rate in Greenage. With that we should be able to attract competitive creche service provider with reasonable and much affordable rates to residents.
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