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Randomized   Transfers  

    Contents
    (I will describe randomized transfers by following two examples)
  1. Example-1 : Randomized Transfers of policemen
  2. Example-2 : Randomized formation of teams

    (other topics)
  3. About transfers and existing randomized transfers
  4. How to enact such procedure


Eample1 : Randomized Transfers of Police Inspectors

     What is existing procedure to transfer a PI as of today?

     The transfer today is at 100% discretion of Home Secretary and other IAS-baabus of Home Ministry and the HM (Home Ministers). When power to transfer 100s of PIs in a state is concentrated into so few hands, what else do you expect but high level of nexuses and rampant corruption?

     The HS and the Ministers have nexuses with other senior officers, senior policemen, Ministers, judges etc. Sometimes, the HS and HM also have indirect nexuses with criminals (the indirect nexuses is via other MLAs/Ministers, via other policemen) and sometimes HS/HM also have direct nexuses and dealings with criminals. The criminal will offer bribes to a senior policemen or an MLA/Minister, who has nexus with HS, who will transfer the PIs as per the requirement of the criminal.

Proposed transfer procedure to reduce nexuses:

     One procedure that can reduce nexuses is randomize transfers, such as follows :
  1. Say PI's duration in a purticular police station is decided as 3 years. Then every month the HS (Home Secretary) will prepare a list of PIs who are about to finish 3 years within next 2-3 months. The HS will also make a list of positions which are going to be vacant.

  2. HS will call a Grand Jury to prepare a random parings of PIs and vacant positions. Of the 30 Grand Jurors, one will randomly select the name of an PI from the lot by selecting a random number. And another Grand Jurors will randomly select a PI and a vacant position by selecting a random numbers. And so forth.

  3. This selection will decide the new positing of the PI.

  4. A pre-mature transfer of the PI can be done ONLY by a Jury and no one else.
     This procedure removes the discretionary powers that senior officers, senior policemen and Ministers/MLAs etc have in the transfer. So this will reduce a reason for PI to be slave of senior officers/Ministers etc.

     The same procedures can be used for the transfers of almost all junior/middle level staff not just in police, but also almost all government departments.



Eample2 : Randomized formation of Investigation Teams

     Say Water Department in a district of 40,00,000 has 50 inspectors, headed by say a Commissioner, to check if every bore-owner is using a water meter and that his water-meters are NOT rigged. Say the Commissioner has recieved a tip about a bore-owner that his meters are rigged. Then following are the procedures Commissioner may use to increase nexuslessnes in the investigation
  1. He will randomly select two inspectors and a cameraman, and ask them to go to a place near the bore, but he will NOT tell them the extact address.

  2. Once the inspector has reached a site close the bore, then ONLY the Commissioner will tell the inspectors which specific bore they have to investigate. The cameraman will record the whole investigation.

  3. Within 2-3 hours after inspectors finish the investigation, the Commissioner can again select 2 inspectors and a cameraman at random and send them at the SAME site to take another investigation.

     This will increase the nexusless as the inspectors are relatively strangers, and each will be afraid of selling out as he is worried that the other may testify against him. In addition, they have no idea which two inspectors will come in the second round and what if those two inspectors do not sell out? This mutual mist-trust decreases the possibility of nexus formation.



About transfers and existing randomized tranfers

     Transfers drastically reduce nexuses, makes administration more documented and procedural, and makes an individual dispensable. The dispensability is of paramount importantce in givernmnet administration, for if an individual even becomes indispensable, he is very likely to become extra-corrupt and extra-atrocious. Now if transfers are discretionary, it only increases nexuses and corruption rather than reducing it. So transfers should be as randomized as possible. QED

     Some departments in India do use Randomized Transfers, but the the decisions are taken by senior officers in a close dark smoke filled room. The radomized pairing of the officer to be transferred and the poistion should be done manually, WITHOUT the use of computers, that too in front of Grand Jurors or in public, and should be done by someone chose at random from public, the officers should NOT be allowed to draw from the lot. This is necessary to decrease nexuses in administration, as well as increase citizens' faith in administration.



How to enact such procedures?

     Not to mention, installing these procedures in various depratments would need seperate Legislations in City Councils, Assemblies and Parliament. Now if citizens are NOT interested in such Legislations, then there should be no such laws to begin with. But even if citizens are interested in such laws, I dont think Councilors, MLAs and MPs of today or future would show much interest, as they are too busy serving the nexuses they have. IMO, citizens are better-off first creating procedures such as
LM.01 , LM.02 and, LM.03 , and then pass the legislations to enact the Jury-based review procedures.





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