The shortage of more than 10,000 officers in the Indian Army has now started impacting the officers-jawans relationship, and the increased friction between them flared up on two occasions this year, Army Chief General Bikram Singh said on Wednesday.
As the report of Court of Inquiry into the Nyoma incident in Ladakh where officers and jawans engaged in fist fight and in Samba incident in Jammu where the a prolonged standoff sent the unit in tizzy are pending, the Army Chief said that measures are being taken to address the issue.
When asked if the shortage of officers is leading to incidents of friction between soldiers and officers, Gen Singh said, "Yes, that is one of the main reasons. The shortfall of officers as of now is 10,100. The deficiency is definitely impacting." The shortage has been there in the Army for the last five years at least resulting in poo management at the unit level. The army’s sanctioned strength is 46,615 officers.
The Army Chief, however, termed the incidents the two incidents as "aberrations" and "isolated" ones and said specific measures will be taken once the court of inquiry into is complete. "As you know we had one or two instances, these are aberrations of course and these were isolated incidents. One was in 2010 and in recent past we had two incidents," he said.
On steps taken by him to address the issue, he said, "As a Chief my concerns have been to ensure that we get back to basics and ensure that climate and environment in the units are correct and conducive to growth and group cohesion and the core values of the Army are upheld." The Army Chief has interacted with thousands of officers since he has taken over and has been insisting on “Return to basics”.
Presently the Short Service Commission of the Indian Army remains “undersubscribed”. “We are taking measures like spreading awareness and convincing parents to send their children into force to address the shortage The disenchantment is also affecting the soldiers as more than 10,000 soldiers took pre-mature retirement from the force last year. There has been an upward trend in the number of soldiers leaving forces. In 2011, 10,315 soldiers opted for premature retirement, while the figure for 2010 and 2009 was 7,249 and 7,499 respectively. The jawans, who are better educated than in the past, retire around a productive age of 35 years to look out for greener pastures instead of continuing in the force.
With due respect to the opinion of the COAS, as an officer who has served for over 30 years in the Army, I am afraid the Chief is widely off the mark when he ascribes the two recent unprecedented and horrendous gross violations of military discipline to "Shortage of Officers".
ReplyDeleteCol. Abhay Rishi (Veteran)