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Proposed law/procedure
EAS.01   :  Equal   Allowance   System   over   Underground   Water  

Purpose : To reduce nexusproness in allocation of underground water, and reduce poverty without taxation

    Contents

  1. Background
  2. The basic setup of EAS.01
  3. 1st procedure : Allocation of Monthly Allowances
  4. Effect of Allocation on bore-owner
  5. 2nd Procedure - RLPP over Water Guard
  6. How do these two procedures increase monthly incomes of poor/Elders
  7. 3rd Procedure - Review by Jury
  8. Summary of EAS-01’s Procedures
  9. Conclusion
  10. Draft of the act to create procedure EAS.01
  11. FAQs on Equality over Underground Water

Background

The purpose is to reduce poverty. How? By ensuring that every citizen gets equitable share in the "rent" or "deemed rent" of natural resource. How? I have proposed several laws to enable that.

EAS.01 is one of these proposed laws. The proposed law EAS.01 will reduce poverty and will also bootsrap a process that would result into passing several laws that would later reduce poverty without taxing the rich.


The basic setup of procedure EAS.01

This procedure comes into existence AFTER the District Panchayats have EAS-UW Act. The draft of the Act is given here.

  1. The Mayor (or District Panchayat Sarpanch) has to appoint 2 officers : Registrar and Water Guard. The Registrar will issue a registration number to every bore-owner. The Water Guard is supposed to ensure the metering of the bores.

  2. The City Council (or District Panchayat) will decide the maximum amount of water a citizen can draw from ground in a month, called as Citizen’s Monthly Allowance of Underground Water (eg it can be 1200 liters per person per month).

  3. 1st procedure : The citizen can transfer his monthly allowance to any bore-owner, using RLPP.

  4. 2nd procedure : A citizen can approve a person of his choice for the position of Water Guard using RLPP. The Mayor will chnage the Water Guard if sufficient number of citizens Approve a perticular candidate.

  5. 3rd Procedure : If a citizen has evidences against worng doings of an employee, he can present it before a Jury made by selecting 12 citizens at random from the City, and the Jury may expel the officer if they are convinced by the evidences.
     Now within a few days, these procedures of EAS will FORCE bore-owners to pay money directly to those who are consuming less than average amount of water. I will explain how this force comes.


1st Procedure : RLPP for Allocation of monthly allowance

     As per the proposed EAS-UW Act, each citizen has a fixed Allowance over Underground Water which he may "allocate" to any bore-owner. The sequence of steps for allocation are as follows (please note how similar it is to railway reservation system)

  1. The citizen will give his ration card (or voter-ID) to Registrar's clerk and a slip/form (similar to slip in railway reservation). On the slip, the citizen will write name and Registration number of the bore-owner.

  2. The clerk will enter the ration card number, the citizen’s name, the bore-owner’s name, the Registration number of the bore-owner etc.

  3. The Registrar’s clerk will charge Rs 2 - Rs 3 from the citizen as "Allowance Allocation fee".

  4. The system will print receipts similar to railway reservation ticket. The receipt will have a serial number, date, name and code of the clerk. A sample is shown below. 

    

    Allocation  of  My  Monthly  Allowance 
of Underground Water  (Fee : Rs 3)
    

Dear Mayor, 
        I advice you to Allocate my Allowance of Underground Water 
to the following bore owner - The Citizen.  

              Reciept Number   3245-345-01                 
                        Date   28/03/2001
Citizen's Ration Card Number   67897899  
              Citizen’s Name   Prakash Mehta   

          Bore Owners Name    Shrimali Factories
          Bore Owners Number  08767

Clerk’s name, number, sign  Suresh Pandya/67-092/S Pandya 

Citizen’s Thumb Print


  5. The citizen can Re-allocate his Monthly Allowance to a different bore-owner any day he wishes. The Re-allocation will cancel his previous Allocation.

  6. But next month, if the citizen wants to Allocate his Monthly Allowance to the same bore owner, he NEED NOT visit the Registrar’s office at all.

  7. Every bore-owner will get a list of citizens who have Allocated him the allowances and those who have withdrawn.
    A sample of the list that every bore-owner will get
    (similar to passengers’ names’ list in railway compartment)

    
Allocation of Monthly Allowances of Underground Water   (June-2000)

Bore Owner Name   : Shrimali Factories 				
Bore Owner Number : 21-10356

Each Citizen’s Monthly Allowance for this month = 2600 liters
Monthly Allowances you had last month            :    12,575
Monthly Allowances citizens gave you last month  :        42
Monthly Allowances citizens took away last month :        39
Net change over last month                   :         3 Increase
Monthly Allowances you have this month           :    12,578

    
You are entitled to draw  2600 * 12578 = 32,702,800 liters 
water from bore this month


    

Following citizens gave you their Monthly Allowances this Month

    Ration Card No Family Members      Name              Message No
 1     1372016         6            Kalra, Brij M          95499
 2     1664672         3            Amin, Vrijlal          84709
 3     2185188         4            Dhillon, Jay           58783
 4     2604239         1            Mehta, Vimal           74022
 5     3644667         3            Pathak, Surekha        62586
 6     4020310         5            Khan, Akbar            14964
 7     4210275         1            Holkar, Babu           19675
 8     4633510         4            Ramesh, P              42995
 9     5637330         3            Divakar, Sudhir        57412
10     5652714         2            Patel, Navinchandra    74898
11     6124705         3            Parekh, Sudha          99653
12     8141273         3            Divan, H               49508
13     9002112         3            Singh, Jasvir          62714
14     9353809         1            Singh, H               56375
Total                 42 new Monthly Allowances


    
Following citizens recalled (took away) their Monthly Allowances 
last Month (Sorted by Card Number)

      Ration Card No Family Members      Name              Message No
 1     1026247          3             Divan, Sudhir         58783
 2     2488964          5             Mehta, Vimal          84709
 3     4731887          4             Jain, Bimal           62586
 4     5745430          6             Patel, Suhas          74898
 5     5770579          3             Khan, Suhel           95499
 6     5773218          2             Sai, Samir            14964
 7     8631544          4             Shankar, P            42995
 8     8680565          6             Khan, Suleman         74022
 9     8680962          3             Seth, Vineet          19675
10     9303822          3             Singh, Jasvinder      57412
Total                  39 Monthly Allowances deducted



Effect of Allocation of Monthly Allowances on a bore-owner

     Suppose the Mayor decides Monthly Allowance of each citizen as 2000 liters. Now say 1000 citizens gave their Monthly Allowances to a bore-owner. Then as per EAS-UW Act, that bore-owner can draw at most (1000 Allowances * 2000 liters per Allowance) = 20 lakh liters of water from the ground. If he draws more water, as per EAS-UW act, he can be fined.

     If during the month, 200 citizens leave him and 100 join him, then he will have 1000 - 200 + 100 = 800 + 100 = 900 Allowances. So bore-owner can draw at most (900 Allowances * 2000 liters per Allowance) = 18,00,000 liters. Drawing more water will be illegal as per the Act.


2nd Procedure - RLPP over Water Guard

     The Water Guard is the officer in charge to force every bore-owner to put a water meter and punish a bore owner if he extracts more water than the Monthly Water Allowances he has ontained from the citizens. But what if the Water Guard takes bribe and lets the bore-owners draw water without Allowances. How can citizens stop this?

     The EAS has a cheap/fast nexusless administrative procedure (RLPP) by which citizens can replace the dishonest officer with someone they think is better. This summary of the procedure is as follows :

Summary of Replacement of Water Guard by RLPP
  1. The initial appointment is done by the Mayor
  2. A citizen, after paying say Rs 2 to Rs 5 fee, can register his Approvals for upto 5 Water Guard candidates.
  3. The citizen may rewithdraw his Approval without paying any fee.
  4. If over 25% citizens have Approved a candidates and he has over 2% more Approvals than the existing officer, the candidate with more Approval will become the new officer.
Details of Replacement of Water Guard by RLPP
  1. Any person who wishes to be the Water Guard, can register himself as a candidate.

  2. A citizen may walk to Registrar’s office, show his voter-ID to the clerk and on a slip (similar to slip in railway reservation), write names/numbers of upto 5 candidates he Approves. Approval registering is purely optional, a citizen may or may not do it at all.

  3. The clerk will charge Rs 2 - Rs 5 from the citizen as Approval Registration Fee.

  4. The clerk will punch in the ration card number, the name/serial-number of the candidates etc. in the computer. The computer will print receipts similar to railway reservation ticket. A sample lay out of the receipt is shown below. The receipt will have a serial number, date, name and code of the clerk.

    SAMPLE   layout   of   the Reciept
      that   the   citizen   will   get   when   he   registers   his   Approvals 

    

    Approval  For  Water Guard  (Fee : Rs 3)
    

Dear Mayor, 
        I advice you to appoint any of the below mentioned
individuals as the Water Guard. - The Citizen.  

              Reciept Number   3245-345-01                 
                        Date   28/03/2001
Citizen's Ration Card Number   67897899  
              Citizen’s Name   Prakash Mehta   

Candidates Approved
      Candidate Number            Name  
          004                      J. Singh    
          045                      Rajesh Shah  
          078                      H. Sawant  

Clerk’s name, number, sign  Suresh Pandya/67-092/S Pandya 

Citizen’s Thumb Print


  5. A citizen can withdraw the Approvals anytime anyday. Following is the SAMPLE of the layout of the Reciept which a citizen will get when he withdraws his Approval. 

    
Withdrawing the Approval  For  Water Guard(Fee : ZERO)
    

Dear Mayor, 
        I am withdrawing the Approvals for the following candidates 
- The Citizen.  

              Reciept Number   3245-763-56                 
                        Date   30/04/2001
Citizen's Ration Card Number   67897899  
              Citizen’s Name   Prakash Mehta   

Candidates Approved
      Candidate Number            Name  
          004                      J. Singh    
          078                      H. Sawant  

Clerk’s name, number, sign  Suresh Pandya/67-092/S Pandya 

Citizen’s Thumb Print


  6. A citizen need NOT file Approval each and every month. A citizen needs to file Approval ONLY when he wants to withdraw an Approval or he wants to Approve one more candidate.

  7. Counting approvals : The Approval-Count is decided as follows
    1. Suppose a city has 100,000 citizen-voters. Suppose there are 10 candidates for a post. We will call them C1, C2, …. C10.

    2. Suppose a citizen approves C1, C2 and C4. Then
          Approval-Counts of C1, C2, C4 will each increase by 1.

    3. Suppose the same citizen after a few withdraws approval of C2 and approves C1, C5 and C6. Then
          Approval-Count of C2 will go down by 1
          Approval-Count of C4 will not change
          Approval-Count of C1 will not change, as he had already approved C1
          Approval-Counts of C5, C6 will increase by 1

           This is how Approval-Count is counted in RLPP.


  8. Printing Lists - Notifying the candidates about Approvals and Withdraws (=Recalls)

         The Registrar will print citizens’ lists (similar to passenger’s lists in railways) for each candidate showing which citizen has Approved him and which citizen withdrew his Approval. The list will be on web-site for free.

    SAMPLE of the List that each Candidate will get 

    Approval Counts for Water Guard                June 2000  
    
 
Candidate Name    Singh, J   
Candidate Number  1205   
Citizens who had approved you last month  245,673   
Citizens Approved you this month               10   
Citizens who withdrew their Approval            5   
No. of citizens who have approved you     245,678 
                                          out of 546,676 (44.94%)  

    

   List of new Approvals (Sorted by Ration Card Number)

       Card No        Name             Message No 
 1     2158112      Divan, Sudhir         21851 
 2     2350222      Mehta, Vimal          58783 
 3     2885461      Jain, Bimal           40203 
 4     3156068      Patel, Suhas          13720 
 5     3737486      Khan, Suhel           42995 
 6     4040625      Sai, Samir            36446 
 7     4514433      Shankar, P            56375 
 8     4759652      Khan, Suleman         57412 
 9     5176682      Seth, Vineet          99653 
10     5311764      Singh, Jasvinder      19675 

    Number of new Approvals = 10

    

List of Citizens who took away their Approvals 
(Sorted by Ration Card Number)

       Card No        Name               Message No
 1     4020310      Khan, Akbar            14964
 2     4210275      Holkar, Babu           19675
 3     4633510      Ramesh, P              42995
 4     5637330      Divakar, Sudhir        57412
 5     5652714      Patel, Navinchandra    74898

    Number of new Withdrawals  = 5


         This is the list every candidate will get, in printed or in electronic form. The list is similar to the passenger’s list in railway-reservation system.

  9. Replacing the officer based on Approval-Counts
    1. Initially the Water Guard is appointed by the Mayor.
    2. Till any candidate obtains Approvals from 25% citizens, the Mayor's appointee will continue.
    3. If and when over 25% of ALL registered citizens approve a candidate, then the Mayor will appoint THAT candidate as the new Water Guard.
    4. Now after the replacement, say some another candidate gets 2% more Approvals the existing Water Guard, Then the Mayor will appoint the another candidate as the new Water Guard.
     Now can RLPP's cost be covered in the Rs 2 to Rs 5 charged by the Registrar? Yes. For details, please see here.


How do these two Clerical procedures increase monthly incomes of poor/Elders
  1. Suppose a factory owner needs 5000,000 liters of underground water a month and say citizen’s allowance is 1000 liters a month. The factory owner has ONLY two options : Option-1)ask some slum dwellers to visit Registrar’s office and allocate their monthly allowances to the factory. Option-2)bribe the water guard.

  2. Bore-owner chooses Option -1 : If the factory-owner does not pay an allowance-giver (typically a poor person) every month in time, the giver is likely to allocate his allowance to someone else. So in general, the factory-owner will have to pay the givers every month for their allowance

  3. Bore-owner chooses Option -2 : Say the bore-owners bribe the Water Guard and he lets them take water without allowances. Then the bore-owners will offer less and less to the poor citizens. Due to economic loss and hatred, the poor citizen will run to Registrar’s officer to approve another candidate. So sooner or later, a non-corrupt officer will become Water Guard, and so Option-2 will no longer be an option.

  4. Thus poors’ monthly income will increase.

  5. Since the Elders have 4 times the monthly allowance, the system will create a monthly pension for them.

3rd Procedure - Review by Jury

I have descrined this procedure here.


Summary of EAS-01’s Procedures

 Clerical Procedures For Citizens

 Procedure 1 : A citizen, with ration card can approach Registrar’s clerk. The citizen will fill out a form/slip stating bore-owner’s number. The clerk will enter the details into the computer system and print a receipt

Procedure 2 : If for any reason, what-so-ever, the citizen does not like the Water Guard, he may go the Registrar’s office and Approve at most 5 candidates who want to be Water Guard. He will suggest his approval on a form. The clerk will netr the details in the computer and the system will print a receipt.

Clerical procedure for Mayor, officers, clerks etc.

Procedure 1 : The Mayor can resign or appoint 4 officers Water Guard, Jury Administrator, Registrar, Accountant.

Procedure 2 : If a candidate gets Approval of highest number of citizens and over 25% of ALL citizens, the Mayor will appoint him as the new Water Guard in 2 days. Later, if the Water Guard’s Approval goes below 20% the Mayor will replace him in 2 days.


Conclusion

     Reducing poverty is not an easy, but a trivially easy problem. There are 2 simple Clerical procedures that can reduce the poverty, or perhaps altogether eradicate it.

     The commonly suggested remedies are revolution, reforms, education, infrastFructure-improvements, mass awareness, mass agitations, system-change, etc. etc. But all in all, my point is that a few mere mortal Clerical Procedures can reduce Indians’ miseries. And so I see no need for complicated solutions like revolution, reforms, infrastructure-building, changing social ethos etc. when a simple solution exists.

     The EASUW is just a simple sample. I decided to make it one of the first steps as mere Corporation/Panchayat level Resolution is sufficient. EASUW will reduce poverty by Rs 10 - Rs 50 per person per month, and will create an image for other EASs. Once the poor citizens see, smell, touch, feel and use the cash they obtained from Water-Allowances, they will learn on their own how the EASs for coal, minerals, crude-oil, bandwidth etc would get them more and more cash.

     All citizens need to do is pass the EAS Act. And all Mayor/CM need to do is to appoint 2-3 officers, Registrar and Guard etc. And within 2-3 months poor citizens will start getting cash for their Allowance.

     And thus the poverty will reduce.


Draft of the act to create procedure EAS.01

To enact EAS over Underground Water, the citizens would need to pass "EAS-UW Act" in the District Panchayats. The draft of the Act is given here.

     It will be wiser for citizens to first enact procedure LM.01 in City/Panchayats , and then use LM.01 to get this act passed. To know about procedure LM.01, please click here.


Frequently Asked Questions

  1. ___    Is EAS very complicated for citizens?
  2. ___    Can RLPP's cost be covered in the Rs 2 to Rs 5 charged by the Registrar?
  3. ___    Will a citizen need to file his Allocation every month?
  4. ___    What will be the number of clerks needed to manage Allocaltion of Water Alloances?
  5. ___    What will motivate citizens to file/withdraw Approvals for Water Guard?
  6. ___    Wont "Free rider problem" affect RLPP over Water Guard?
  7. ___    How can bore-owner force bore-owners to install proper meters?
  8. ___    Why use a Jury and not a judge to decide cases on Underground Water?
  9. ___    A techinical issue : How can Water Guard stop theft of Water?
  1. Is EAS very complicated for citizens?

         No. Not at all. For citizens, these procedures are much simpler than buying railway tickets. Any poor citizen, who knows how to buy or sell vegetables, will figure out how to make money from his Water Allowances. Getting familiarity with Approval will not take much time as the citizens are already familiar with elections. The moment the value of Monthly Water Allowances drops, the Hatred will make a citizen walk to Registrar’s branch to File an Approval.


  2. Can RLPP's cost be covered in the Rs 2 to Rs 5 charged by the Registrar?

    Yes. For details, please see     here.


  3. Will a citizen need to file his Allocation every month?

     No. A citizen needs to file Allocation ONLY when he is changing the bore-onwner. Suppose a citizen wants the SAME bore owner to get the monthl Allowance of next month, he NEED NOT go to clerk at all ; it is automatically Allocated.


  4. What will be the number of clerks needed to manage Allocaltion of Water Alloances?

    Lets look at the allocation process.
    1. If a citizen wants to Allocate his Monthly Water Allowance to the same bore owner, he NEED NOT visit the Registrar’s office again.

    2. So once every citizen has allocated his Monthly Allowances, the Registrar needs to manage only those citizens who are changing the bore-owners.

    3. Since most bore-owners in 3-4 months will offer the same rates, there will be very few changes (what if a bore-owner suddenly need more or less water then Water Allowances he has?

    4. He can always buy/sell from other bore-owners). Say 25%-35% of ration card holders change bore-owners every year, i.e. 2% - 3% of the ration card holders change bore-owners every month.

    5. Then for every 100,000 ration card holders, the Registrar has to handle 2000-3000 ration card holders a month i.e. less than 150 citizens a day. Just 1 clerk will be needed to manage this load.

         So after first 3-4 months, the Registrar would only need just 1 clerk for 100,000 citizens. And once the process is automatized with a touch screen based terminal (smilar to ATM), the number of clerks needed to run RLPP will further reduce.


  5. What will motivate citizens to file/withdraw Approvals for Water Guard?

         The Hatred.

         The Hatred against a harm causing officer, and NO OTHER reason. The Hatred ALSO solves the free rider problem.

         If the Water Guard is corrupt, the bore owners will buy less Water Allowances. So value of Water Allowances will fall. Each citizen will face an economic loss within 1 month. So over 80% - 90% of lower class citizens would approve another person as Water Guard. The reason why a citizen will file Approval is Hatred against the existing officer.

         Desire for economic gain is less important. The Hatred always, always and always plays more important role than desire to gain. The wish to hurt the loss-causing Water Guard is more important than cold calculated desire to gain. In any case, the citizen would not go due to any communitarian feeling or because he had respect for the honest officer. Respect for an honest officer doesn’t matter, only the Hatred for loss-causing officer matters.

         The administrative procedure of RLPP ensures that citizens can replace Water Guard in 1-2 months if over 70% - 80% citizens are fed up of him. So the Water Guard will have no option but to shut down the un-metered bores. Suppose the city has 10000 un-metered bores. When Water Guards seizes one motor and seals one bore, the remaining 9999 bores’ owners will get meters within 24 hours. And within 2-3 days, the bore-owners will approach the citizens and for their Monthly Allowances.

         For past 5000 years, thinkers have been thinking on the problem of regulating an officer. "How to regulate an officer with discretionary power, without impairing his capacity to act and serve the citizens?" is one of the oldest puzzle and has been around ever since concept of State came into existence. The biggest mistake Citizens ever made was appointing a king/judge and hoping that he would be smart, efficient and honest. The problem is still unsolved, as it is not clear who would regulate the judges and ensure that they stay efficient/honest. So conveniently, the thinkers assumed that the most judges will always be honest/efficient. If these thinkers were sometimes seeing rather than thinking, they would noticed 1000s of counter-examples.

         The one and ONLY known way to regulate in officer is a DIRECT supervision of the citizens. Thats waht RLPP achieves in a cost effective way.


  6. Wont "Free rider problem" affect RLPP over Water Guard?

         The citizen has to pay a small fee of Rs 2 - Rs 5 for filing his Approval. Also, he has to spend some time and effort. Now a citizen will get benefit only when a large number (60% - 70%) of citizens File Approvals. If only 1% - 10% citizens File Approvals, there will be absolutely no change at all. So realistically, one citizen’s participation makes only a tiny-tiny-tiny difference.

         So a citizen may think that --- a) if other citizens do not participate or take wrong decision, his action will go in vain b)if other citizens are participating and taking right decisions, the right thing will happen anyway ---- so in any case he need not spend any money/efforts/time by participating. These short-comings are what analysts often call as "free-rider problem".

         The analysts/activists have been selectively discouraging each-other by citing the "free-rider problem" Why do I say "selectively"? Because most analyst cite "free-rider problem" only in the proposals they don’t like. Further, analysts have highly exaggerated the strength of a person’s wish to be a free-rider. If the desire to be a free-rider was so strong, the %-voting in an election should have been less than 5% - 6%. Everyone would have thought "my one vote will only make a little difference ; so let me relax and let others do the job of selecting the right candidate ; I will get the right candidate anyway". But %-voting is generally 45% - 75%. And the remaining do not vote as they dislike all candidates they know. Very few have desire to "save time and efforts" by not voting. So experience of elections shows that tendency to be a free-rider is negligible when participation needs small efforts/costs.

         Further, I believe that riders are never a problem, mostly the rides are ill-planned. The ride-planner must structure the journey in such a way that a passenger gets at least something that he likes, irrespective of whether others join or not. The ride-planners fail to add those things and then they blame the potential riders.

         Is Approval Filing "well planned" ride? Does it deliver something worthwhile, if not everything, to a citizen irrespective of whether most citizens join the ride or not? Yes.

         The Hatred removes the free rider problem completely. I will provide examples to show that the journey of Hatred and Revenge never, never, never faces lack of participation due to the free-rider problem.

    Example 1: Mob-lynching. Say 100s of persons are throwing stones on a Hated one. Why doesn’t each person save his energy by thinking "let others throw the stone and I won’t ; this way, I will save my energy". Why doesn’t free rider problem appear in case mob-lynching? Because each person in the mob wants satisfaction of throwing a stone and hurting the person. Even if the Hated one dies, the person will not get satisfaction unless he had thrown a stone. Even if the person is asked to pay a small fee to throw a stone or just watch, he would gladly pay. The Hatred solves free rider problem in case of mob-lynching.

    Example 2: Elections. Between 1988-2000, 99% of BJP supporters voted for BJP not because they liked BJP but they Hated Congress. And the reason why 99% of Congress voters voted for Congress because they Hated or were afraid of the other parties, particularly BJP. Very few "liked" the candidates/parties they voted for. And over 100% voters had no expectations of getting any thing material from their candidates.

    A psychologist after a number of laboratory experiments, once commented that - "people are much more sensitive to negative than to positive stimuli. There are a few things that would make you feel better, but the number of things that could make you feel worse is unbounded." In EAS too, also, when the Water Guard becomes corrupt, even if the corruption is small, the over 90% citizens’ blood would boil enough that they would file an Approval against him.

    Hatred is 10000% rational. One survives because one Hates who hurts one. Often, not always, Hatred (or desire to take Revenge) is a form of God. In EAS, due to water theft, the Allowance value decreases and causes deep and intense Hatred in most citizens against the Water Guard. This is the ONLY plus point of the EAS. The journey of Filing Approval gives him an opportunity to hurt the corrupt Water Guard. The citizens are not hurting an officer physically, but doing something much more damaging: by Approving an alternate candidate, they are ruining that officer’s reputation and career. It is more lethal than mob-lynching. Each Approval to someone else reduces the salary of the existing Water Guard by a small amount. The salary loss is insignificant. But not the insult. And when citizens Approve someone else, the officer’s career will get ruined and his heart will burn to ashes. To a cheated citizen, the smell of this ash will be a perfume. It is a Revenge, and the Revenge is the sweetest of all creations. Thus the journey deliverers something to the citizen he likes : an opportunity to humiliate and hurt the officer he Hates. No rider will feel burdened.

    So in most cases, a citizen will use Approval whether others join him or not.


  7. How can bore-owner force bore-owners to install proper meters?

         First of all let us consider types of bore-owners. Mostly they are a)co-operative societies like apartment complexes, high rise buildings etc. b)factories c)farms

         In case of the co-operative users, such as bore in a residential society, a bore is used by 100-1000 users. If the meter is rigged, all 100-1000 members would get benefit. But when the meter is found to be rigged, the chairman of the association will end up in trouble. No chairman would take risk of rigging the bore or confronting the Guard for other members of the association. The factory users too are unlikely to show any violent resistance. There may be some violent resistance from the farmers

         If a bore-owner does not put water meter at his bore, the Water Guard should use policemen/judges etc to get him punished. But there are placed where policemen/judges have sold out to the wealthy ones. How can Water Guard force such powerful bore-owners to install metrers?

         here is one strategy, which the Water Guard may use at with OWN reasoning and risk.
    1. Water Guard can publicly notify all citizens using a newspaper ad : "that such and such bore-owner does not have meter and so due to him each citizen is loosing so much cash".

    2. This will create intense Hatred in 70% - 80% of poor citizens’ minds against that bore-owner. If the bore-owner is wealthy, the Water Guard should also write how much wealth he has. This will further intensify Hatred that the poor citizens have against that bore-owner.

    3. Then he should approach 1000s of poor citizens in poorest neighborhoods to accompany him when he serves a notice to the bore-owner. The poor anyway have extreme Hatred against those who have grabbed the Natural Resources. Most of them will accompany and yell foul slogans against the bore-owner and his family members.

    4. When the bore-owner sees 1000s of angry citizens, full of Hatred in their eyes, shouting dirty slogans against the bore-owner and his family members, most likely he will give up.

    5. Otherwise, the Water Guard should "request" him, in front of all 1000s of citizens to accompany him to a trial by Citizen Jurors. And after Jurors approve, he should, in presence of 1000s of citizens pour cement into the bore and shut it down. He should request each citizen to pour one bucket at a time. This way, the bore-owner will suffer a severe loss.

        This is what I call "Citizens’ participation in Government". Should Water Guard be so harsh against bore-owners who dislike monitoring? Yes. As PM Vajpayee in a meeting had quoted Chanakya, "there is no love without intense terror".


  8. Why use a Jury and not a judge to decide cases on Underground Water

         Today, on all disputes, we use a judge’s order as the final word. So procedurally speaking, the Jury System is a very small modification - instead of a cadre or a fixed body of individuals called judges, the Jury System uses 10 randomly chosen citizens to resolve a dispute - for each dispute there is a separate set of 10 citizens. The Jury System I am proposing comes from Atharavaved. It has NOTHING in common with Panchayat Raj. The Panchayat System that was used in India in medieval ages was a Manuvadi perversion of the Panch System used in Vedic era. The Panchayat System of today is 95% Manuvadi and 5% Vedic. While the Jury System I am proposing is purely Vedic.

         In a separate book, I will describe why Jury is better than judges to resolve any series of disputes. In this booklet, I will only confine to cases related to EAS of Waters. There are two kinds of decision Jury or judge has to take on behalf of citizens - to fine a bore-owner or expel an officer. I will show that for both the cases, Jury System is a "morally", a better option than judge system.

    [ While using the word "morally", I must clarify that I am using Vedic Morality. By Manuvadi morality, the judge system is better option than Jury.]

    Issue 1: Who should decide the fines on the bore-owner - a Jury or a judge ?

          Currently, when an officer decides that a citizen needs to be fined, he has to present him before the judges and the fine is imposed only after the judges approve. Instead of judge, in the EAS, it will be "better" if Jury has this power to impose the fine.

         By Vedic morality, the underground water belongs to the citizens of the district. It does not belong to the Mayor or Corporators or judges. Economically, the bore-owner is paying citizens and so bore-owner is a provider for the citizens. Thus if the Water Guard believes a bore-owner has stolen water, he should not have power to issue a fine without the permission of the owners of the waters. In other words, "has this bore-owner hurt the owners of the water i.e. citizens?". Now it is clear that calling ALL or even majority of million citizens on every case of theft of water is impossible. So we have two options - a)we let National court judges appoint National court and State court judges, who will appoint District court judges who will decide the if the citizens want to punish that bore-owner or not b)we choose 10 citizens at random, and consider their opinion first, if citizens want to punish that bore-owner or not.

         I certainly DON’T believe that the judge or these 10 citizens CORRECTLY REPRESENT the citizens of the District. But I DO believe that the 10 randomly chosen citizens, compared to judges, are better representatives of the citizens of the District on the question "has this bore-owner damaged the citizens?" Since it is unfair to punish an accused-thief without the permission of owners, the Water Guard must take permission of the citizens before issuing a fine.

         By Manuistic morals the kings/judges own the waters and so ONLY their permission is need to fine the bore-owner. And so by Manuistic morals, the judge system is appropriate. Further, Manu says that common men are stupid and only priests are intelligent. So Jury System would be sinful, according to Manu.

    Issue 2: Who should decide "Is the officer misfit to serve the citizens" - Jury or a judge ?

          The Water Guard, clerk of Registrar etc. are employee of citizens and not the judges. The citizens pay them by selling the nature or by collecting the taxes or by other means. The officers salaries DO NOT come from judges’ pockets. Moreover, the Atharavaved says that a king/officer has no moral right to continue if citizens disapprove him. Once again, the randomly chosen 10 citizens are better representatives of the citizens, than the judges. So for this question too, the Jury System is more Vedic than judge system.

         Thus for both questions related to EAS, the Jury is better in representing will and wish of the citizens than the judge.


  9. A techinical issue : How can Water Guard stop theft of Water?

          Please note that this is a TECHINAL question, not related to EAS. Any system, which involves metering of bores will have to face this question.

         In EAS, Water Guard is there to regulate bore-owners and his junior officers. But I have NOWHERE assumed that he will be always honest. In fact, I begin with assumption that only 1-2 out 10 will be honest and efficient.

         In the EAS, the citizens are the guards over the Water Guard. In short, instead of a current pyramid --- citizens, junior officers, deputy secretary, secretary, High court judge, Supreme court judge, --- the EAS uses a circle ---- citizens and bore-owners, junior officers, Water Guard, Jury/Approvals. The EAS rightly converts citizens into zealous guards for nation’s wealth.

    Administering meter-investigators

          The Water Guard will have to occasionally send investigators to bores to verify if meters are running properly or rigged. The Guard is under Majoritarian pressures of Approval Filing, but the investigators may very well take bribes. How can a Guard ensure that the juniors are honest and careful?

         Suppose the Guard has 10 investigators. Each day he has to make a list of 10-20 bores he suspects. He can randomly assign each investigators a list of 5-10 bores with their addresses.

         Now suppose A and B are honest and remaining all are dishonest. Say C checks a bore-meter and finds it faulty. He may be tempted to take a bribe from the bore-owner, but he does not know who will be the next meter-checker. If it happens to be A or B, then that would falsify his reports. So fear puts a check on a possibly corrupt investigators.

         On the other hand. The bore-owner too knows that each time, the different investigator will come. And out of 10, 1-2 are honest. So even if he tries to bribe the investigators and the investigators accepts the bribe, there are chances that the next investigators would not.

    Installing 5 meters

          The Water Guard should "request" each bore-owner to install 5 meters. All 5 meters should be from different manufacturers and Water Guard should decide the types in such a way that they all use different technologies. Why 5 meters?

         When Water Guard detects a theft, and presents the bore-owner who has rigged the meter before the Jurors to decide a fine, the bore-owner will try to get benefit of doubt by saying that "the meter went wrong, he did not rig it". The Jurors too will get confused.

         Here the 5-meter scheme will be useful. It is possible that they went wrong, but they cannot go wrong by SAME amount. Thus if all there meters are correct, and bore-owner draws 100,000 liters, all 5 meters will show 100,000 liters. But if due to technical fault, one meter goes wrong, still 4 will still show 100,000 liters and one will show something else. In worst case, even if all 5 go wrong, they will show DIFFERENT readings. But if all 5 meters show same wrong readings, the Water Guard can convince the Jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that bore-owners had rigged all the 5 meters

         For an honest bore-owner, 5 meter scheme has advantage. He can quickly detect if a meter goes wrong. In a genuine case, the meter may be showing excessive reading, in which case he saves. In general, if the meters are showing different readings, he should check all of them and replace the faulty ones. The story has a simple moral - polygamy is better than monogamy.

    Setting up separate electricity meter

          The Water Guard can require the bore-owners to setup a separate electricity meter for each motor. And he can ask them to register the electricity meter readings and water meter readings second day and send the log-book’s copy every week or every month. How can this help?

    Now the Water Guard can see that an average bore in a given area pumps out 200 liters for 1 unit of electricity. And a particular bore in the same area everyday pulls out only 50 liters for 1 unit. This way he can immediately make a list of possible thieves.


If you have any other question, please mail it to MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com. Thousand thanks in advance.



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