Bandobast Arithmetic: Reserve, Overtime and the Third Night Shift
The Kurnool district police office has sanctioned a three-day bandobast for a temple-town Brahmotsavam beginning Friday. The local station has 74 sanctioned constable posts, but 9 are vacant, 6 constables are on long leave, 5 are attached to court duty and 4 are away at a training course. The district has attached 16 home guards for the event. The bandobast plan requires 20 personnel on duty at any moment: 8 at the main gate, 6 in the parking area and 6 along the procession route. Shifts are of 12 hours. Standing orders require a reserve of 20 per cent of total available strength, and the reserve must not be deployed. The sanctioned overtime budget is ₹80,000, paid at ₹190 per hour beyond the eighth hour of duty. The inspector proposes the same 20 men on three consecutive 12-hour night shifts "to keep the team familiar with the route", and has rostered a constable who finishes at 6 a.m. to report again at 3 p.m. the same day.
1. Calculate the net available strength and decide whether the bandobast plan is feasible as written.
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Step 1 - civil strength: 74 − (9 + 6 + 5 + 4) = 50 constables. Step 2 - add home guards: 50 + 16 = 66 bodies. Step 3 - reserve: 20% of 66 = 13.2. Round up to 14; rounding down would leave the reserve below the standing order. Deployable = 66 − 14 = 52. Step 4 - requirement: 20 at any moment × 2 twelve-hour shifts = 40 person-shifts a day. Decision: 52 ≥ 40, so the plan is feasible, but the margin is thin - only 12 spare bodies per day, and they are a daily buffer, not a per-shift one. No shift can dip below 20 by borrowing from the other shift. Two further limits: home guards cannot be given firearms, investigation work or lock-up charge; and if four more constables go on leave or the court attachment rises, deployable strength falls to 48 and the plan collapses. Feasible, with the shortfall flagged in writing to the supervisory officer rather than absorbed silently.
2. Compute the overtime liability for the three days and propose the least disruptive way to stay within sanction.
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Current cost: every 12-hour shift produces 4 overtime hours. 40 person-shifts/day × 4 h = 160 OT hours/day; × 3 days = 480 hours; × ₹190 = ₹91,200 against a sanction of ₹80,000 - an excess of ₹11,200 (14%). Option A: seek reappropriation of ₹11,200. It solves the budget on paper but leaves fatigue untouched and is slow. Option B (preferred): convert the six-man procession-route point from two 12-hour shifts to three 8-hour relays. New pattern: 14 personnel on 12-hour duty × 2 = 28 person-shifts, plus 6 × 3 = 18 person-shifts on 8-hour duty = 46 person-shifts/day, within the 52 deployable. Overtime now arises only from the 28 twelve-hour shifts: 28 × 4 = 112 h/day × 3 = 336 h × ₹190 = ₹63,840, saving ₹27,360 and comfortably within sanction. Reasoning for the choice: it respects the reserve, stays inside the budget without a fresh sanction, and simultaneously reduces the fatigue risk that Option A ignores. The trade-off - six extra bodies per day - is exactly what the spare capacity exists for.
3. Identify the roster's rest violation and state a corrected pattern with its administrative justification.
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The violation: duty ending at 6 a.m. and resuming at 3 p.m. gives 9 hours of rest, below the 11-hour minimum rest norm between shifts and far below what a 12-hour night shift requires. Adding a third consecutive night shift for the same 20 men compounds it: cumulative sleep loss degrades attention, judgement and reaction time, which is precisely the risk that matters at a crowded procession. Legal/administrative consequence: the roster is open to challenge as a breach of standing orders and of occupational-safety duty; if an incident occurs, the inspector's written roster becomes the evidence against the department, and the officer cannot plead ignorance because the 9-hour gap is visible on the face of the document. Corrected pattern: (i) minimum 11 hours between shifts, and a full 24-hour off after the last night shift in a block; (ii) rotate in blocks - one group on day shift for the whole event, another on night shift, rather than alternating daily; (iii) where a night shift must be followed by a day duty, insert a rest day; (iv) enter rest hours in the duty register so the compliance is auditable. Reason: familiarity with the route can be built within a shift or through a briefing, and is not worth a fatigue-related failure.