SATHI’s Working Group is a democratic body responsible for all major decision making. It monitors and reviews projects/activities, finances, personnel and administrative matters, and takes relevant decisions. It is also responsible for staff recruitment and evaluation, redressal of grievances, and planning future organisational strategies. The WG uses democratic and transparent processes, and decisions are by consensus. Members of the WG are elected by the staff, and it has representation of different levels of administrative and project staff. The WG Co-ordinator is an ex-officio member of the WG.

Members: Ramdas Shinde, Swapnil Vyavahare, and Trupti Malti
Ex-officio:  Dr. Dhananjay Kakade

The Program Development Committee (PDC) provides programmatic direction to SATHI, and monitors and maintains quality of work undertaken, to ensure it is in consonance with its overall goals and mission of the orgaanisation. The PDC reviews all materials produced, including reports, working papers, policy briefs, manuals, research proposals, posters and social messages. It scrutinizes methodology related issues of all projects, and certifies them.

Convenor – Dr. Dhananjay Kakade

Internal members (AT trustees) – Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Dr. Mohan Deshpande

External members– Dr. Mathew George, Brian Lobo, Dr Kishor Khillare, and Dr. Ritu Parchure.

Secretariat – Shweta Marathe

Institutional ethics committee at Anusandhan Trust is a multi-disciplinary independent body which reviews all its research activities as defined in the Standard Operating Procedure. The IEC’s panel of external and internal members are selected by trustees of Anusandhan Trust based on their expertise and scientific knowledge. AT-IEC is provisionally registered with National Ethics Committee Registry for Biomedical and Health Research, Department of Health Research National Ethics Committee Registry for Biomedical and Health Research – EC/NEW/IND/2023/MH/0339

The IEC-AT can be contacted via email at iec@cehat.org or the phone on +91 915 24 41949

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) 
• Action Research – Application Form 
• Research Project – Application Form 

External Members

• Anant Bhan, Independent Researcher and a visiting faculty at several institutes.
• Surinder Jaswal, Prof. Deputy Director, Dean – School of Research Methodology, TISS, Mumbai
• Nilangi Sardeshpande, Independent Researcher, Pune
• Anubha Rastogi, Independant Lawyer, Mumbai
• Kajal Jain, Program Coordinator, MASUM, Pune

Secretariate

• Sanjida Arora (Member Secretary), Research Officer, CEHAT, Mumbai
• Shweta Marathe, Senior Research Coordinator, SATHI, Pune.

The Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) responds to employee grievances regarding any decision/action, or dispute. The GRC intervene when all attempts to resolve a grievance informally, within the team fail. The decision of the WG is binding unless the employee appeals against it to the (full form) GB, whose decision then, is final. The GB may not be approached directly unless the nature of the grievance makes it unavoidable, e.g. grievance against the Coordinator. Any grievance presented to the GRC must be in writing and should be signed by the complainant. Anonymous grievances are not accepted. For grievances presented on behalf of someone else, consent of the aggrieved party is mandatory.

WHEN THE COMPLAINT/ GRIEVANCE IS ACCOMPANIED BY THE RESIGNATION

• The acceptance of resignation should be made contingent upon the completion of inquiry. Perhaps the person should be informed immediately that an inquiry is started and would report in two weeks. And till then the acceptance or rejection of resignation has been kept in abeyance and when the decision is taken after the inquiry report is made available (not more than 2 weeks from the date of the resignation letter), the organisation would be very flexible about the notice period.
• The authority receiving the complaint should immediately seek written reply from all persons accused in the resignation letter. Not more than a week should be made available to such persons to submit a reply. And such a person, without waiting for the meeting of WG/ Trust should appoint one person to inquire into charges.
• The inquiry should be summary one, using all documentary material and the complaint cum resignation letter and replies, and of course interview of complainant and accused. The person doing inquiry should take less than two weeks to give report.
• If the decision-making bodies (WG/Trust) are not able to meet to review the inquiry report and take decision, they MUST empower appropriate person (Coordinator, Managing Trustee) to decide on the issue. Such decision must include (i) position taken by the organisation on the allegations, (ii) decision on resignation (whether the person requested to reconsider or acceptance of resignation), (iii) if the allegations or some of them are found to be correct their proposal for action against the person found guilty.
• The grieved person can approach any person who he/she is comfortable with and that person can act as a staff advocate for that occasion.

Members: Shweta Marathe, Sharda Mahalle, Deepali Yakkundi, & Swapnil Vyavahare