SOURCE:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-army-officer-cadre-dilemma/677831.html
THE ARMY OFFICER CADRE DILEMMA
Present strength of full-time officers leaves little for equipment purchase
NO CHERRY-PICKING: The Army will best benefit from the wholesale application of restructuring based on AV and Shetkar panels’ recommendations.
A FORMER Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Arun Prakash, in an article highlighted that 70 per cent of the Army’s budget goes towards revenue expenditure. He misses the point that revenue expenditure is high because the budget itself is small. If it were to be 3 per cent of GDP (as proposed by the Parliamentary Committee of Defence), this percentage would perhaps come down to 40, or less, of the Army’s budget. What he fails to point out is that civil employees account for 25 per cent of the strength of the defence forces, but their pay and pension bill accounts for nearly 35 per cent of the defence budget. This is one component of the MoD, which is overdue for a drastic cut in strength. With the clubbing of the pension bill, this percentage has gone up.
The Army’s strength is related to the security environment, the terrain and undecided borders, both in J&K and along Tibet.
At the same time, whatever be the scale of the defence budget (as part of GDP), the size of the officer cadre is very large and the pay and pension bills will always impact it, more so, and if, NFFU is granted to the defence services officers. This motivated the Army Headquarters to propose an increase in the percentage of Short Service Commission (SSC) officers, but the terms of employment are neither here nor there. This arrangement releases an officer, at the age of 34-37 years, with no alternative employment. The proposal of one-year training on release, in some odd skill, amounts to nothing and would not qualify him for any worthwhile job in the civil market.
Any review of the officer cadre must
(i) reduce the pay and pension bill of the Army,
(ii) improve career progression of regular officer cadre,
(iii) make SSC cadre attractive and (iv) maintain operational efficiency.
The major flaw is that short service is for 10 years and extendable to 14, with no commitment for re-employment of those released from service. In addition at 14 years, the officer will be holding the rank of Lt Col and little else, making it difficult for him to fit into the civil market, and that by itself will impact the pride within the service, because the rank of Lt Col is highly regarded in military service.
While in the civil services, higher appointments have substantially increased over a period of time, this was not possible in the case of the Army without upsetting the command structure. The AV Committee did just that by upgrading appointments of the company commander from Major to Lt Col, which merely downgraded this rank.
[ In civil services higher appointments are a classical MOCKERY of the system eg of date Haryana has 27 Additional Chief Secretaries enjoying all the privileges of Chief Secretary MINUS responsibility similarly 14 Additional Director Generals of Police. Combined with NFU it is the open loot of tax payers money. Similarly the situation is almost same in all other Indian states and civil services - Vasundhra ]
Similarly, some earlier committees made inappropriate recommendations and the Army Headquarters accepted these without applying its mind and relating to the ground realities. The first such committee recommended disbanding stretcher-bearer companies with mountain divisions, contending that in future helicopters will lift casualties. Helicopters cannot lift these casualties, spread as they would be, along steep slopes and enemy’s forward defence line. And what of the weather? In Kargil, the bulk of attacking battalion’s manpower got committed to evacuating casualties. It takes minimum eight persons to evacuate one casualty in the high mountains. The same has been the case related to the disbandment of animal transport companies, where now offensive operations get confined to road axis, which invariably are strongly defended
For SSC, better material can only be attracted when their resettlement is appropriate and assured. For this, the released officer should be young enough to take up a second career. Therefore, his service with the military has to be of appropriate duration, so that he is useful for the military and equally young to find a place in a suitable second career.
In the past, a number of committees have looked into re-organising the Army, essentially to cut cost and reduce the teeth-to-tail ratio. However, the MoD has been cherry-picking only those recommendations that conform to its plans. Thus many of the recommendations of the AV Committee, and more recently those of the Sheketkar Committee have been left out. Most recommendations are inter-linked and ‘cherry-picking’ breaks the link and leads to disruptions, voids and complications.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-army-officer-cadre-dilemma/677831.html
THE ARMY OFFICER CADRE DILEMMA
BY
Lt-Gen Harwant Singh (Retd)
Present strength of full-time officers leaves little for equipment purchase
NO CHERRY-PICKING: The Army will best benefit from the wholesale application of restructuring based on AV and Shetkar panels’ recommendations.
A FORMER Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Arun Prakash, in an article highlighted that 70 per cent of the Army’s budget goes towards revenue expenditure. He misses the point that revenue expenditure is high because the budget itself is small. If it were to be 3 per cent of GDP (as proposed by the Parliamentary Committee of Defence), this percentage would perhaps come down to 40, or less, of the Army’s budget. What he fails to point out is that civil employees account for 25 per cent of the strength of the defence forces, but their pay and pension bill accounts for nearly 35 per cent of the defence budget. This is one component of the MoD, which is overdue for a drastic cut in strength. With the clubbing of the pension bill, this percentage has gone up.
The Army’s strength is related to the security environment, the terrain and undecided borders, both in J&K and along Tibet.
At the same time, whatever be the scale of the defence budget (as part of GDP), the size of the officer cadre is very large and the pay and pension bills will always impact it, more so, and if, NFFU is granted to the defence services officers. This motivated the Army Headquarters to propose an increase in the percentage of Short Service Commission (SSC) officers, but the terms of employment are neither here nor there. This arrangement releases an officer, at the age of 34-37 years, with no alternative employment. The proposal of one-year training on release, in some odd skill, amounts to nothing and would not qualify him for any worthwhile job in the civil market.
Any review of the officer cadre must
(i) reduce the pay and pension bill of the Army,
(ii) improve career progression of regular officer cadre,
(iii) make SSC cadre attractive and (iv) maintain operational efficiency.
A review of the cadre involves working out the ratio between regular and short service cadre and rank structure of various appointments. The Ajai Vikram (AV) Committee (2001) recommended a ratio of 1:1.1 between regular and SSC officers, as against the present ratio of 4:1. Many of the committee’s recommendations stand stalled. Though the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had approved a reduction in regular cadre a decade back, the proposal was not properly implemented.
While in the civil services, higher appointments have substantially increased over a period of time, this was not possible in the case of the Army without upsetting the command structure. The AV Committee did just that by upgrading appointments of the company commander from Major to Lt Col, which merely downgraded this rank.
[ In civil services higher appointments are a classical MOCKERY of the system eg of date Haryana has 27 Additional Chief Secretaries enjoying all the privileges of Chief Secretary MINUS responsibility similarly 14 Additional Director Generals of Police. Combined with NFU it is the open loot of tax payers money. Similarly the situation is almost same in all other Indian states and civil services - Vasundhra ]
Similarly, some earlier committees made inappropriate recommendations and the Army Headquarters accepted these without applying its mind and relating to the ground realities. The first such committee recommended disbanding stretcher-bearer companies with mountain divisions, contending that in future helicopters will lift casualties. Helicopters cannot lift these casualties, spread as they would be, along steep slopes and enemy’s forward defence line. And what of the weather? In Kargil, the bulk of attacking battalion’s manpower got committed to evacuating casualties. It takes minimum eight persons to evacuate one casualty in the high mountains. The same has been the case related to the disbandment of animal transport companies, where now offensive operations get confined to road axis, which invariably are strongly defended
For SSC, better material can only be attracted when their resettlement is appropriate and assured. For this, the released officer should be young enough to take up a second career. Therefore, his service with the military has to be of appropriate duration, so that he is useful for the military and equally young to find a place in a suitable second career.
In the past, a number of committees have looked into re-organising the Army, essentially to cut cost and reduce the teeth-to-tail ratio. However, the MoD has been cherry-picking only those recommendations that conform to its plans. Thus many of the recommendations of the AV Committee, and more recently those of the Sheketkar Committee have been left out. Most recommendations are inter-linked and ‘cherry-picking’ breaks the link and leads to disruptions, voids and complications.
However in the present case, the recommended period of service for SSC officers is five and a half years, where the first six months are for initial intensive training. Thereafter, during the first year of service, an officer needs to do a composite course of three months related to the arm/service of the officer. His annual leave should be restricted to a month in a year.
On release from the military, some percentage should be absorbed in the civil services, some in the Central and state police and bulk of them given reserved vacancies in IITs, IIMs, medical, law and engineering colleges, as well as the military’s own technical institutions. Those selected for further education should be given 50 per cent of the last pay drawn for the period they served.
To start with, the ratio between regular commission and SSC officers could be 60:40 to eventually change to 40:60. Those who wish to altogether opt out should be given lump-sum monetary grant and those who join the civil services/police to carry forward their seniority.
