A recruiting strategy initially proposed in 2020 with the goal of decreasing officer shortages in the Army while addressing rising defence pension costs is likely to be amended to recruit exclusively troops on a short-term contract basis. After the Covid-19 epidemic broke out in 2020, the Army’s recruitment procedure was suspended two years ago. Aspirants for the armed services protested on Tuesday at Jantar Mantar, among other things, against the suspension of recruiting drives.
According to high ranking government sources, the proposed recruiting model, termed Tour of Duty (ToD), is in its final phases and is being fine-tuned, with a spate of talks conducted on the subject over the previous two weeks. The current draught of the concept, according to sources, stipulates that all troops in the Indian Army would be recruited under the Tour of Duty paradigm. Around 25% of them would serve in the Army for three years, while 25% would stay for five years.
According to the latest draft, the remaining 50% will serve in the Army for the whole term until they reach retirement age, according to the sources. As per a senior government official, preliminary estimates suggest that this might save a large amount of the defence pension expenses, which are expected to rise steadily over the next several years. It has also been recommended that 50% of soldiers who are discharged after three or five years be included in the National Pension Scheme and receive certain medical benefits available to Armed Forces veterans for a set length of time.
According to the source described above, this suggested recruiting strategy may not be relevant to officers, and only soldiers may be engaged under it. According to data provided in Parliament in December of last year, the Army is short 7,476 officers. The specific timing of the launch of this idea is unknown since the Army is seeking approval from the Defence Ministry. According to the most recent data obtained by News18, a 1.1 lakh military shortage has emerged in the previous two years after recruiting drives were halted because of the Covid-19 outbreak. This number is growing by around 5,000 troops every month.
‘Infra Training Should Be Raised to Cut Pension Bills’
Within its current infrastructure, the Indian Army can train around 40,000 recruits at a time. This is thought to be sufficient to fill the gaps left by the 60,000 troops who retire each year, as well as to fulfil normal extra requirements for soldiers that arise from time to time. For general duty troops, the training time is 34 weeks; for craftsmen, it is 19 weeks. According to reports, even if the intake of recruits is promptly boosted, it will take six to seven years to fill all of these positions.
According to a source cited, even if the ToD is adopted and basic military training for new recruits is cut to 19 weeks, it would take about four years to fill the army gap that has arisen in the previous two years. However, the vacancies created by people leaving through ToD at the end of three and five years would begin to build up. ‘The Army would have three years from the date of introduction of the programme to improve infrastructure in order to train new recruits who would be required to fill the cumulatively rising vacancies under the ToD,’ the second source stated.
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