Annual Transfers – a multi Crore industry?

By Vijay Kumar

Yesterday we carried a news item on the aborted Placement Board for transfer of senior officers. The transfer business which was once a tiny cottage industry has grown by leaps and bounds to become a mega multi-crore industry that is now threatening to eat up the Revenue department as a whole. It is now openly rumoured that the industry is now worth an annual turnover of over a hundred Crores in the Revenue department alone, at the highest forum. What is the cascading effect of this multi crore business? It is naturally transferred down the line. For every Rupee spent in Delhi, at least a hundred rupees has to be generated in the field. That is a hundred crore business in Delhi actually is a ten thousands crore business in the field. And assuming that a 10% cut is offered on evasion, this amounts to a whopping One Lakh Crore evasion, which is the whole excise collection!

If a Commissioner buys a post for say fifty lakhs of rupees, naturally he is expected to make at least a crore of rupees and as it goes down the line as pasupatahastra, the amount is increased in geometric progression and officers are compelled to make money to keep the business running. It is a perennial cycle of investments, profits reinvestment and more profits. All that you need is the initial capital and the right connection. If the initial capital is ready and you don’t have the connections, they will come automatically. All that it requires is the capital and a will. If you want to join the game, it is worth withdrawing money from your GPF to invest for the initial capital in this lucrative business. And if you don’t join the scheme, you are left out and it is very difficult to join the main-stream later. But you can still try.

It is not difficult to find the players in the game. Their posting history will speak volumes of their fiscal and other managerial capacities – but their skills are so strong that they continue in their lucrative business whatever be the policy and whoever be the boss. There are two orbits – the one of the haves and the other of the have-nots and the twain shall never meet though there are occasional aberrations.

This malady is not the exclusive prerogative of the Revenue Department. Actually what prompted this piece is the book, “Open Secrets - India's Intelligence Unveiled” by MK Dhar, former Joint Director, Intelligence Bureau. There is an incident in the book of a Delhi Police Inspector who was posted to Intelligence, who told Dhar that he had bought a Police station for Rs. 5,90,000 and it was not fair to pull him out of that job before he earned at least Rs. 15 Lakhs!. He got that post as he was the highest bidder and he expected that he should fairly earn those 15 lakhs. For what? Some for a rainy day and some for buying a future posting! That explains it all! It’s a vicious cycle!