Holding a post is itself a professional skill, and it can be practised or neglected like any other.

Published on: Aug 25, 2026, 07:21:22 IST

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I was in Mumbai recently to watch a friend take his company public. He began in 2008 and built something India used to import: the propulsion system of a railway engine. That evening, we dined at one of the city’s famous hotels. The food was stale. The reason may have been anything — a slow evening, a careless hand. I make no accusation. But my own reaction surprised me: I silently thanked Tukaram Mundhe for tearing down kitchen doors across Maharashtra.

And yet, the two careers sat side by side in my mind all week. My friend, the founder, started in 2008 and stayed in one place. The officer started in 2005 and has passed through 25 offices, gaining national attention in his 21st year, for a hygiene drive. Both men are builders by temperament: impatient, exacting, and contemptuous of the excuse. Only one of them has built something that will outlive his presence in the room.

Indian officers are moved constantly and cheaply: An analysis of some 2,800 IAS careers found the average tenure in a post was 16 months, with a 53% chance of transfer in any given year — worse in a new chief minister’s first months, worse again when the ruling dispensation changes. A suspension needs a charge and a prosecution needs sanction; a transfer needs one line and a signature. Some of any crusader’s postings are receipts for refusals he should be proud of.

Twenty-five postings in 21 years is about ten months per chair — 40% shorter than the punishing national average. Mundhe was moved faster than the ordinary Indian officer. A gap that wide is merely available information.

I do not claim to read his heart. I am pointing at a pattern, and at the possibility, that holding a post is itself a professional skill, one that can be practised or neglected like any other. It can certainly be practised; E Sreedharan was given the Konkan Railway in 1990 and finished it in seven years through terrain that had defeated planners for a century. Then, came the Delhi Metro, where he stayed until his retirement in 2011 — the better part of two decades in one chair, sections delivered on time and within budget.

He was no more upright than the honest officers I served with, and he raided nobody. What he had was the political skill to hold ground: He negotiated his autonomy and spent the tenure he had won on building concrete structures rather than on television.

Studying 4,721 projects across 63 government organisations in Nigeria, Imran Rasul and Daniel Rogger found that greater autonomy for officials raised project completion rates by about 18%, while heavier monitoring and incentive regimes lowered them by around 14%. Autonomy, though, is negotiated, defended, and renewed — work a crusade would treat as compromise.

Lawrence Sherman’s review of 18 police crackdowns found that 15 produced initial deterrence that then decayed, in many cases while the crackdown continued at full strength. Fear expires on its own schedule, and a news cycle demands escalation, until a food safety drive is mounted by what holds attention rather than by what actually makes food safe.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) already has a Hygiene Rating Scheme that scores restaurants and sweet shops — and it is voluntary. The portal lets a citizen look up only single eateries and publishes no total. A rating system that doesn’t establish a total count is a filing cabinet, not a public instrument.

In a LocalCircles survey published on August 11, drawing over 91,000 responses across 244 districts, 74% wanted the display of hygiene ratings made mandatory. New York, since 2010, has had a grade posted at every restaurant window; salmonella has since fallen by 5.3% a year against the rest of the state. Make such rating compulsory in Maharashtra, and one season’s raids become a permanent instrument.

So, could Mundhe have held on somewhere in these 25 years to date? Part of the answer lies in a State that spends its officers like small change. Part lies with the officers themselves, and in a profession that has begun to mistake motion for merit.

My friend spent 18 years in one place, through a financial crisis and years of certification, because that is what building anything big requires. The same is true in governance. It is a tragedy that officers are transferred frequently. The bigger tragedy is that more transfers are hailed as merit.

OP Singh retired as director general of police, Haryana. The views expressed are personal

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