How about efficient police top-brass?

BANGALORE: Largely inefficient and mostly corrupt, yet there''s no dearth of senior police officers jockeying via caste and creed for the posts of Police Commissioner (Bangalore) and Director General of Police (State).
Post Emergency, the then government overlooked the seniority of a police officer to post an efficient officer in the hot-seat.
All hell broke loose and there was acrimony all around.
So successive state governments have taken the route of least resistance, selecting the seniormost officers to fill in these two coveted posts.
Alas it''s a nonsensical, illogical method.
Imagine what would happen in the private sector if the seniormost professional was made the chairman or managing director?
Then Nandan Nilekani would have had to wait for another decade in the least to succeed the high-profile Narayana Murthy.
In a state, always on the brink of chaos, thanks to the politics over the sharing of the waters of the Cauvery, Kabini and Krishna and the ever-looming shadow of Koose Veerappan, the need of the hour is for the Krishna government to select the best officers to keep an eagle eye on the city and the state.
But that won''t happen.
So we have the ludicrous situation where IPS officer Jaiparkash who already enjoys the rank of DGP, except that he is in charge of fire services, might be posted to the hot-seat, even though he is due to retire in five months.
If we take his swearing in, his rounds of meetings with senior officers and finally his understanding the law and order situation in the state, it will be time for him to hand over the baton to another senior who probably has less than a year to retire and play with his grandchildren.
When Henry Ford created the assembly line system of production he probably never reckoned that an otherwise progressive state like Karnataka would resort to his method.
It''s worse, when it comes to Bangalore.
H T Sangliana is due for promotion to the rank of DGP, which means there is a clutch of 13 suitors all eager to grab his seat even before the heat dissipates.
Many of the suitors have served the city well in the past.
Quite a few of them have been decent officers, but most have been interested more in extra-curricular activities than policing.
If seniority is the yardstick, then we might yet be saddled with a police commissioner who won''t be able to deal with the rising crime in a burgeoning city.
Is there a way out?
Difficult to gauge, for politics and the police go hand in hand.
The politician and the police officer make ideal bed-fellows.
And it is in this context that the seniority mantra works.
Except, it doesn''t help us, the tax-paying citizenry.
We care a damn about seniority. What we want is a police force that we can respect.