CleanCredit Pilot Results Achieved!
CleanCredit project was piloted in the Campus during the IIMB Vista Fest. There were around 1000 participants from other colleges.
The goal of the Pilot was to prove few assumptions we had made, and these assumptions have been unambigiously proved to be correct.
Assumption 1: Any trash worth money will not lie around for long. It will be picked up in a short time.
Result: We could not find a single tagged Paper Plate, Paper Cups, bottles, tetrapak or anything else which had the CleanCredit tag on in the open. All of it was deposited within 1 hr into the 7 garbage cans.
Assumption 2: The mechanism would lead to complete segregation of waste.
Result: We achieved perfect segregation of garbage! The Can bin had only cans, the PET bins had only PET bottles, Tetrapak bins had only tetrapak and so on.
Assumption 3: If customers themselves did not redeem the trash, others would.
Some people left their trash on the tables, took it to their hostel rooms or just threw it away all across the campus. We had all of these tagged products brought back to us by the next day by the house keeping staff.
Overall in 3 days
Collected 34 Kg’s of trash
Kept the Campus Clean 24×7 for 3 days
Achieved Perfect segregation of waste
CleanCredit team Wins First Prize for Social Media Marketing @IIMB Vista
The Clean Credit team has won the 1st prize for its Social Media Campaign. Here is the Video Ad we created for CleanCredit. The team members are
1. Josepha Larrian : Graphics Design & Creative Imagination
2. Pradyut Porwal : Videographer, Video Editor
3. Adrien Kielich : The Social Media Campaign Designer, Coordinator of the Social Media Campaign.
4. Amrendra Kumar: The story line, visualization.
This is just the beginning, there is a long and ardous mission to accomplish.
Our Mission is to Clean India as Clean as Switzerland in 1 yrs time. That is by 2nd October 2011!
Join the mission, spread the word and help us.
CleanCredit: Making India as Clean as Switzerland!
Piloting CleanCredit™ at IIMB : Oct 1-3
We are piloting a Solid Waste Management System inside the IIM Bangalore Campus from Oct 1st to Oct 3rd. We are hoping to demonstrate the working of the scheme inside the Campus. If all works well we hope to undertake pilot projects at district and state level, and try to persuade companies to join the band wagon.
Vision: “To make India as Clean as Switzerland”
What is CleanCredit™?
Clean credit is a unique Litter control and Solid Waste Management System. The System enables the collection and segregation of waste at source by using a Market mechanism akin to Carbon-Credit or a security deposit for airport trolley. The system if successfully implemented all over the nation has the potential to rid India of its national shame of being filthy (CWG), recycle and reuse almost everything that can be recycled (sustainable consumption), Create 10-20 million relatively good jobs for the desperately poor, Reduce air, water and soil pollution and in general improve the quality of life in India.
How does it work?
Every piece of material that has the potential of being littered (polythene bags, pet bottles, paper cups and plates, aluminum cans, tetrapak etc) will have a “mark” which is easily recognizable. Each mark has a rupee value demarcated which signifies the residual value of the package. The marked trash can be exchanged for money at the deposit centre. The empty package can be redeemed by the consumer themselves or if they litter it, it can be redeemed by any third party picking it up.
Examples of Similar Systems and Plausibility of CleanCredit™ Mechanism
- Deposit on Trolley carts at Airports and Shopping Malls: A person has to deposit some money (usually $1) while taking a trolley. At the end of use, the trolley-cart is deposited by the person to its proper place and they get their deposit money back. If the person taking the cart leaves it at a random place, the deposit is redeemed by anyone depositing the cart at its proper place.
- Pfand (Security Deposit) System on Bottles in Germany: Every PET bottle, beer-wine bottle/can has some deposit money included in the retail price of the goods. ( PET bottles – 25 Cents, Beer Glass Bottle – 8 Cents, Aluminum Can – 25 Cents). The Pfand (deposit) can be redeemed from slot machines all over the town.
- Deposit on Glass Cold Drink Bottles (India): If one takes home a glass cold-drink bottle, the shopkeepers usually takes some money as deposit, which is returned on the return of the bottle.
- Beer Bottle Collection System in India: Rag-pickers often buy beer and other bottles from households. They then sell it to the local kabadi-wallahs at a little higher price. (Buying Price from households – Rs 2, Selling Price – Rs 3-4 per bottle). Thus even without a system of beer-bottle collection centers almost all the beer-bottles get reused. The beer-bottles get picked up while PET bottles and other garbage lie around just because beer bottles have an intrinsic value whereas PET bottles have insignificant intrinsic value. If only we could put some value into every piece of trash, the beer bottle mechanism would work for other trash as well.
Why is India so dirty and why do Anti-Litter policies don’t work?
There are many explanations given for the garbage problem in India but these explanations hardly provide viable solution. Some of the common explanations are as follows.
- Indians lack Public culture, their sense of hygiene is limited within their house. This view implies that if we could change the culture through education the problem would be solved. It will take a generation to educate all Indians about public hygiene, moreover habits and culture die-hard.
- Anti-litter laws are not implemented: The Indian Litter laws are similar to laws elsewhere, but these laws are unenforceable in India. It is nearly impossible to monitor and impose fines with the already stretched-thin police force. It would give rise to more corruption by the monitoring personnel.
- No garbage bins: It is difficult to find garbage bins in Public Places, whatever bins that are found are overflowing with trash. There is no segregation of waste, even if there are separate bins for different categories of waste, it is found all mixed up. Mixed garbage makes recycling impossible.
The Possible Impact of CleanCredit
- Rid India of the Shame of being filthy.
- Generate 10-20 million jobs ( Rs 100,000/yr/job > > Min. wage NREGA) : A big impact on Poverty[1]
- No cost to the Government: Govt. role limited to making the appropriate regulation.
- Improve the working condition of rag-pickers: Their current working condition is inhumane
- Recycle and Reuse almost everything: Environmentally Sustainable Society
- Eliminate Air, Water and Soil Pollution: Minimize open-air burning, land-filling.
- Reduce Greenhouse gas emissions: Possibility of earning Carbon Credits
- Reduce the clogging of Drains and Sewerage system with Plastic and Garbage.
- Improve the quality of life in general: Clean environment
- Promote India as a Tourist destination.
- Reduce consumption of Petroleum and Energy Resources: Plastics recycled is Petroleum Saved
Necessity of the Piloting CleanCredit
Ideas are dime a dozen! One cannot expect anybody – the Policy Makers, The businesses or People in general to consider any idea seriously until they can see a viable working model. Piloting the idea at the campus level will demonstrate its feasibility, and bring to attention the model to a larger audience.
Further, one cannot through mere arguments and reasoning prove/disproves a model or exposes all the possible difficulties. We believe that piloting the project will inevitably expose the weaknesses of the model, which would help further improvise the model.
Suitability and Benefits of Piloting CleanCredit during Vista
- Environmental Sustainability (Green) is a major issue in Business & Society..
- CWG farce has maligned our nation for filth and ineptitude, we provide a positive solution.
- Enhances the Brand of the Institute as an Innovation Centre.
- National media exposure will help its piloting at a district/state levels and possibly a policy change.
- The process is relatively simple and easy to implement.
- Low budget ( under Rs 10,000 – no external financial assistance needed)
- The key stakeholders like the shopkeepers in the campus have been consulted and they have agreed to participate.
- In consultations with students there has been positive and eager to try out the system.
- The institute director encouraged the trying out of this idea, though he had some reservations on the feasibility of the scheme working.
Implementation: Methodology and Process
All consumable products being sold in the campus will be stamped with CleanCredit stamp. For each stamp the money equivalent will be collected from the shopkeepers. The retailer includes the cost of CleanCredit on the normal price of the goods. The consumer on having consumed the product can redeem the CleanCredit by depositing the packaging in the proper deposit-bin provided.
Only the goods that can be consumed immediately come under the scheme. The goods and the CleanCredit value on them are as follows:-
- Paper Cups and Plates @Rs1
- Polythene Bags/Plastic Pack @Rs1
- Glass-bottles @Rs1
- Tin and Aluminum Can @Rs1
- Plastic PET bottle @Rs1
- Others(Paper Fliers) @Rs 1
[1] Assuming each person in India uses 10 pieces of packaging, each packaging has deposit of Rs 1/- and 50% of the deposit is redeemed by the consumers themselves. Population = 10^9, Salary per annum per job = Rs 10^5. Hence No of Jobs created = {Population x no of trash per day x 365 x 1 x 0.5 (fraction of non-self deposit) }/ Salary per annum per person = 18.25 Million ( for comparison NREGA generated 44.9 Million jobs( 100 days @Rs100/day) by spending Rs250 Billion (Data as of 2009).
Principles for being a Trillionare!
These are some of the Business Principles I believe will make the first Trillion ($).
The Principles
- Any Business you do should be of Global Scale! ( Google, Apple, McDonald’s etc)
- Create value out of thin air and capture it! (Bottled Water, Google, Facebook, Zynga Sports! )
- Information is everything! Capture the shadow and you have captured the beast! ( Real Estate Brokerage, People’s Online Data – Google )
- Never do too much physical work, create incentive schemes to get things done! Always Scheme! ( Airport trolley deposit, Bounty on a criminal)
- Capture the “Somnath Temples” , the markets that have efforts of lifetime captured! (Real Estate, Pension Funds)
- Create value for everyone, but take care to capture some of the value for yourself!
- The problems solved should be a little ahead in the future not too far out! (Apple products )
- Create markets for things that did not exist before! ( Carbon Credits )
- Look for markets that have huge inefficiencies! ( Almost all markets have inefficiencies: Don’t believe in Economic Theory)
- Always work on things that did not exist or improve significantly things that exist! (The space of unsolved problems is infinite; Almost any thing that is being done today and be done in a better way)
- Should involve using as little capital as possible! (So that you do not have to give away your company to the VC; Prototype many ideas)
- Leverage other giants to get mountains moved! (Microsoft leveraging IBM during it’s early days)
- Know the rules but do not be limited by them! ( Know the laws, do not be afraid to stretch the laws)
- Take money in debt but create and own equity! ( Or it shows that you do not have confidence in your idea )
- Grow with vengeance but when market matures, exit quickly! ( Life is short! there will be other ideas to pursue!)
- Continuously keep learning and researching new fields for opportunities, record them! ( The most important Principle! Buy a nice notebook and record all ideas that you get, research it and record it, This is your most important resource)
- Business is a just a game! Don’t get too impacted by it! ( Beyond a point money has little utility, use it to keep score )
- Use all the resources at your disposal, mainly the people you know! ( You are surrounded by talented people )
- Do not take too long to launch, idea to inception- at most 2 months! ( We have short attention span, the more you delay, the more likely it will fail)
- Always use good design and presentation! ( Think Steve Jobs!)
- No Advertising, create PR by being the first and the remarkable! ( Saves a lot of money, Do something good, people will notice it! )
- Be a Man, not Boy! Don’t defer to elders, listen to them but do what your gut feel says! ( Transactional analysis: Presence of authority makes you feel unsure, if you do not trust your own guts, you cannot become an entrepreneur.)
- Do not stay in one online business for long! Tech changes fast! ( Think Microsoft! Think Orkut! )
- Leverage Massively everything you have got! ( Your money is the most precious money! )
- Where-ever possible, do not take VC money! ( They will interfere too much, take away a large chunk of your company and maybe fire you! )
- Create social acceptability for the business and yourself! (If your business in not liked! It’s probably going to be out of business soon )
- Never buy a mature business! Only if it is highly distressed! ( Generally not worth the money! )
- Maintain High-Energy Levels through the day, good health is must! ( Must! What will you do with all the wealth if u are too sick to enjoy it )
- Short and simple (haiku) but elegant! ( People are overburdened with data, Get to the point straight-away )
- Do many businesses; let the managers and partners manage! ( One business can never make you a trillions, only a couple of measly billions, Most of the present billionaires are not richer because most of them have made their money with a single company, they spend the rest of their lives looking after the same company. Moreover there are few markets which are of $Trillion size )
- Get Ideas from everybody! ( You cannot have all the ideas, People love coming up with ideas- they would be happy sharing it with you, cause they will never ever act on their ideas; Think of all the authors!)
- Cater to the masses! (If you can touch a fifth of humanity and get them to pay you $1, you are a billionare
- Cater to the whims and fancies of the rich! (luxury and envy goods) ( 90% of the world’s wealth is accumulated with the top 10% of the worlds people, they will spend on trifles: Think Gucci, Armani, Yachts, Private Jets )
- Cater to the Governments! ( Guys with the biggest purse, Others money spent is never wisely spent )
- Cater to the big Corporations! ( Have huge money! They will buy your company for big dollars )
- Use glamour extensively! ( If you want to sell to the rich! )
- Control media assets, but let it be as impartial as you can! ( It is your biggest defense! People are obliged to you)
- Use the understanding of irrational human behavior! (Read Dan Airely! People are irrational and therein lies the source of all market inefficiencies )
- Focus on industries that have massive network-effect! ( Fastest Billions made in telecom industry – Carlos Slim, Hutch Guy, Sunil Mittal )
- Have business which provides money in advance! (Insurance .. This i learnt from Warren Buffet, Not having cash kills businesses)
- In Online Business reducing the cognitive load is the main thing. ( The scarcest commodity in the Information Era )
- Always try to convert a one-off customer to a regular one. ( Regular stream of income )
The principles are not in particular order, I will keep adding more as i come to it.
Finally, here are a few sectors where the trillions will me made.
- Real Estate: Brokerage, Rentals, Hotels and Inns, Luxury Developments, Golf Courses, City design.
- Public Systems: Waste Management, Health Care
- Finance: Real Estate Financing, Funding education, Real Estate Mortgage fund, Seedfunding.
- Internet and Social Media: Better organization of knowledge, Monetizing free online content ( Think beyond Advertising) , Online Education, Gifting, Online seed-funding, Online Jobs etc
- Retailing: Online virtual shopping, Vegetable & Perishable Retailing.
- Education: Online University , HR and Placement.
” The best way to predict the future is to create it! “
PS: If you find this post useful, want to contribute your own points or want to discuss any of the ideas, Please leave a comment or mail me at
amrendra80@gmail.com
My Hypothesis about why no Indian web-portal are transnational
In an earlier post I had written about the question I posed on the IIMB Linkedin discussion group. After hearing all the comments i am still not sure of the reasons why we have no Indian web-portal serving the world at large. I have come to a set of hypothesis of my own.
My hypothesis are:-
1. We simply never tried !
2. We are too focused on picking up the low hanging fruits!
3. We are too India centric in our outlook!
4. We do not have the right role models to inspire us!
5. Our intellectual in-confidence in conceiving and promoting our original ideas!
Why:How Indian start-ups can do better?
1. Programming skills & experience :: Work on original business model with global scope
2. English Language & Communication:: Use it to learn about other cultures and create global outlook.
3. Intellectual Freedom & Democracy :: Use it to do some original thinking ( China can never compete with us here)
4. Great Business Tradition :: Traditional Business Communities get to high tech! Move beyond trading!
5. Pro Business Govt. :: Babu-log support the small entrepreneurs, not just the big business houses.
My response to “Is TED the new Harvard”
This post is a response to the article ” Is TED the new Harvard? “ .
I am a huge fan of TED talks, but considering it as a replacement of Harvard is premature, but at the same time dismissing the possibility of a better and cheaper online alternative to Harvard is being shortsighted.
The current university model of education is highly inefficient and in-egalitarian.Universities in the short run will continue to be dominant not because it is the best possible way to impart knowledge, but because it has a Monopoly in certifying knowledge.(Giving Degrees).
Having a degree from an elite University is so coveted in the Job Market because it gives out signal that the person is exclusive. How much he/she has learned at University is of secondary importance.
Knowledge can be gained from other sources- online,reading books,watching lectures, discussions, project-work etc. But to be an alternative to University, the most critical innovation has to be made in certifying learning.If it can be certified with fair accuracy the learning achieved and that certification is accepted by the employers, the online university will become a better alternative to offline Universities.
Possible Alternative: Peer Review/ Tribal Model
Consider a tribal society, the best marksman is not certified by a certifying agency but by his peers who have watched the performance in the hunt/war. As societies grew larger it became infeasible to see how each one was performing, so we invented the degree providing institution.
The present academic publishing works more like the tribal institution. A scholars manuscript is judged by his/her peers and that judgment is held to be fairly accurate the scholarly content of the paper.
The Internet and associated technology has enabled us to transcend the problem of large size. A person can learn all she can from curated collections, online discussions etc. In the process of learning she will be expected to demonstrate the understanding of the concepts learned through applying it in the papers she writes, the projects she creates etc. These papers/Projects will be rated by the peer community, the ratings being weighted for the reputation of the “individual rating peer”.
The proof of the pudding should be in the eating!
So should the proof of learning!
It should be in the outcomes of the learning.
My new website: Modernthinkers.net
I have launched my first website (www.modernthinkers.net)
How it came about?
I am starting out an online business for which i had to hire a team of web-developers. They worked only till the money I gave them lasted their “T&M” charges and waited till i gave them further money. Feeling frustrated at the situation I decided to give it a try to develop my own site using a free editor. I found webs.com which gave free space and website editing tool to make my own website. Then i sat through the night developing the website.
Why modernthinkers?
As i have written in the previous blog post , i had watched and listened to 1000′s of video talks by authors, entrepreneurs, activists and other intellectuals. I have become some sort of an expert on these videos. Having been inspired by these talks i would share the ideas in these videos with my friends and give them the link. Therefore i thought it only natural that i use the website to share my fascination for the thinkers and their ideas.
But why a website, when all these lectures already exists for free on the Youtube and else where ?
I agree that all the lectures are available for free all over the web, but there are few problems..
1. There is a lot of clutter, there are few good videos in a mass of nonsense videos, therefore people get lost.
2. There is no place that i know of on the web that has all the good videos of a particular thinker.
3. The Videos are long (~1hr), and not properly curated, therefore people find it hard to commit to watching a video without first knowing what is inside the video and why they should watch it.
4. As of now there is no neat way of discovering other thinkers with similar ideas.
How do you solve the problem?
The videos are arranged by categories, each thinker has a brief profile and all his videos are listed in one page with a brief description of the video.
Does it have a business model? (does it intend to earn money)
I started this project as a labor of love, but as i was going through the project I got increasingly convinced that the website would be able to monetize itself. Hence the very next day I brought the domain-name and hosting for the next 2 yrs. I have thought of a couple of ways to monetize the website.
1. Add amazon.com links to the books written by the thinkers and get a commission from the sale of the books.
2. Banner ads from google adwords, probably other paid banner ads from other sites.
3. Convert the content into a DVD and probably a book! (too much work and some investment)
Until then i will get busy updating the website with content and improving the look and feel.
Where have i been for the Past few months?
The reasons i did not blog for the past few months are in the descending order of significance…..
1. Got busy with exams and submissions
2. Watched a lot of talks (TED.com, FORA.TV, authors@google, iTunesU, Democracy Now, freedocumentaries.org)
3. Got busy exploring ideas
4. Plain laziness
I am coming from this long hiatus with a lot of fresh ideas that i have accumulated overtime.
Hope to post more often. Keep visiting
Amu
The Bad Economics of IIT system
There are a lot of good things that can be said about the IIT system of education,
but it is necessary to have a dispassionately critical look at system so that we can improve it.1. IIT degree a very costly signaling
The biggest utility of a degree from IIT or for that any institution of repute is “signaling good quality” in the job market. (refer to Michael Spence). So it does not bother the employer that the fresh IIT graduate’s academic training matches the requirement of job, the IIT degree is a proxy for good quantitative skills, quick learning etc. IT sector provides a large number of good paying jobs in India.
Take the two and think of demand and supply and you get the current situation. But leaving things to free markets alone leads to a situation akin to stripping down a Boeing 747 for using the tyres thus salvaged to be used in a camel cart. The signaling is very costly indeed!
2. Gross misuse of the scarcest input: Professors time
The quality of faculty is the one thing that makes an institution world-class. IITs are among the few institutions that are able to attract “nearly world class” faculty. All their efforts teaching students the intricacies of engineering goes down the drain, when hardly anybody remotely remembers or uses the learning in his/her future jobs. The students know that, the best utility they can think of is getting the good grades to clear shortlists in placements. The teachers know that, but they keep going on defiantly. In the whole process the passion for learning engineering takes a back seat. The whole thing reduces to a farcical ritual of getting the best possible grades with the least amount of effort. Why teach engineering to people who do not want to learn it? Just because they emerged as a certain “fraction” in the distillation column that is IIT-JEE. Just being smart is not sufficient for excellence, the willingness (passion) to learn a subject is sine qua non. Teaching to unwilling students is a gross waste of the most scarce resource India has: Professors time.
3. Bad economics: Mixing “Free market” economy with “Socialist IIT system”.
The above heading could be the topic of a PhD thesis! It makes eminent sense to look at the IIT system from the lens of economics. Firstly lets see why IIT is a socialist system. The most obvious answer is that it was setup during the Nehruvian Socialist era, while that era has passed but the administration and setup of the institutes have remained relatively unchanged. The students pay only a fraction of the running cost (if one count’s the opportunity costs of the land and buildings like a private institution, the cost would be astronomical) through tuition, the rest is subsidized by the government. Even in a free market paradigm, there is a scope for justification of Govt. subsidy of higher education – “positive externality”. In this case the expected externalities could be economic and technological development of the nation. One could argue that there is little positive externality for economic or technological development of the nation. The remittances sent home from abroad by IITians will only be a small fraction of all the remittances (remember IITians will only be a small fraction of the total number of Indian engineers working outside India). There is little if any intellectual property produced and captured by them in India (even in the field of Software). The best research labs in India like ISRO, CSIR, Atomic Energy etc are not majorly manned by IITians. Infact the biggest contributors to economic and technological progress is made by the students from humble engineering colleges. Considering the zero subsidy these colleges receive from the government, they are infact more efficient!
3.1 Why do most IITians end up in IT industry?
Individuals respond to incentives. The Indian IT sector geared towards doing the technical “grunt work” of the MNC’s business process, is primarily driven by the cost advantage – the best brain at the cheapest rate! it’s a bargain. It cost’s Rs 80,000 per month to hire an unskilled menial labourer in USA, for the same money you could hire 2 or even 3 IITians. Even these greatly reduced salaries exceed those provided in other sectors of the economy. Hence this “pied piper” like situation. The pied piper empties the town of children, the salary differential empties brains from all the other sectors of economy. It is perilous indeed to put all the economic eggs in one basket and turn to a “sugar bowl Jamaica” economy. Our future national competitiveness is in serious jeopardy.
The arguments could go on and on…. it’s already become too big a post so i will stop now.
Ruchika Case: Only the tip of the Iceberg !
The Ruchika Case is just the tip of an iceberg, the problem underlying is of Himalayan proportion. Once in a while one hears of rape, molestation or misuse of power by policemen in the media. When this occurs people try explaining it away in terms of policemen-politician nexus or the low level of pay and harsh working conditions. But i feel people miss the brutality of the reality in abstracting it to theoretical debate.
In fact if you ask any one in the country who happened to have an encounter with a policeman, it is invariably rude, harsh, insulting and humiliating. People at the best try avoid encountering a policeman. If they encounter one, they beg and bribe their way out. From my own experience, whenever i have encountered a policeman i have felt insulted humiliated and extorted. This mode of working of the policeman i guess is routine. Why do we have to grovel before these people, why can’t they talk politely?
I have tried talking to a few IPS officers here at IIMB, they give the routine justifications ; they say that people do not listen if they are talked to politely or corruption occurs in all government departments, why single out the policemen.I find these justifications untenable because the policemen have been given power and uniform to protect the citizens, not to harass them. Secondly corruption in other govt. deptts cannot be a justification for corruption in policing. Corruption in policing is very grave matter because it impinges on our life, liberty and dignity. Without adequate accountability, the power invariably gets misused.
It is this lack of accountability and impunity that makes even the lowly police constable feel entitled to abuse, molest, extort,torture, rape, murder common citizens. I have rarely seen a policeman pay for the chai/snacks from the roadside vendors or pay for the auto. If one looks and compares what a policeman does and a local goonda does, the only difference would be perhaps the uniform.
The present functioning of policing in India is not in line with India being a democracy, it’s perhaps more like the British Raj or even worse Jungle Raj. They rule the streets, not by trust but by fear!
But why are Indian policemen so brutish? Are they all violent psychopaths. I am quite sure that most of them are normal human beings. But what can explain this apparent contradiction. I think “banality of evil” as elicited by Milgram experiment and Zimbardo experiment demonstrates how it is so easy for normal people in authority to perpetrate extreme cruelty.
Secondly it could be due to the prevailing culture within the police department, that if one is not abusive, violent or feared than one is not a good policeman.
More significantly it is due to the perceived impunity from accountability to the citizens and law that encourages them to act the way they do.
The institutionalization of corruption within the system is also a major driver, a few policemen i interacted in informal social settings talk about the transfer-posting system in which they have to pay bribes to superiors to get posting to lucrative posts (where bribe earning potential is huge). Once a policeman in post they are demanded by their superiors to collect a certain minimum quota of bribes. The proceeds of which is passed up the hierarchy.
Who is responsible for this mess? And what can be done about it? I first put the blame on the higher officers (IPS), it is they who are accountable for the behavior of their subordinates. If the subordinates are acting like goondas, it is their dereliction from duty in appropriately directing their subordinates or they are themselves culpable in putting a blind eye to atrocities of their subordinates for the consideration passed up through the system. Or it may be the reluctance of a non-corrupt officer to not himself accept bribes but keep quiet so as to not “upset the apple cart” and avoid ostracization by their colleagues and superiors.
What can be done about it??
There have been lot of talk about police reforms, but the nature of policing has not changed much. I believe it will be almost impossible to change the police system if it is only done by the insiders, and the accountability for action rests solely within the department.
For the system to change, the initiative should come from civil society. Transparency is the best deterrent to arbitrary behavior. I believe that the present mobile and internet technology can be effectively used to expose arbitrary police behavior. I propose a website where people upload voice and video recorded by common citizens using their mobile phones along with the detailed information about the place of incident. The cases there reported could be forwarded to the respective police department and the local media ( news channel, newspaper) and a status update on the progress of the complaint would be done to ensure action.
Another idea is to conduct citizen surveys every month/year about the perception of police behaviour, number of complaints registered against policemen, the crime rate etc for each area from the lowest level to the state level. The data would be used to rank areas according to best policed to the worst policed. It would then be possible to rank the best policed thana to the best policed state. This system would create positive incentives for improving their performance.
A third idea could be involving civil society volunteers to go accompany the policemen in beats. The presence of an outsider watching them would dramatically improves the politeness of policemen.
I expect that any Police Officer reading this comment would be defensive about the organization. But this is how i an ordinary citizen and i am sure many more citizens perceive the system to be. And perceptions are as important as any tangible improvement.
leave a comment