EVEN AS the Indian armed forces are facing a major shortage of middle level officers, a large number of them have applied for retirement, which has posed a big challenge before the defence ministry.

 

As per official figures, the Indian Army is facing a shortage of 11,153 officers, while the Air Force over 6,000 followed by a shortage of 3,000 officers in the Navy. The maximum shortage of officers is at the operational level where formations are now operating with just 12 to 14 officers as against a sanctioned strength of 25 officers. However, in a bid to overcome the shortage, the Army has already started deploying non-commissioned officers and junior commissioned officers in disturbed areas to fight terrorism and insurgency.

 

The experts are of the view that the major reason behind more middle-ranking officers opting for voluntary retirement, as reported by the various divisional headquarters, is the simmering dissatisfaction in the forces over the sixth pay commission’s recommendations.

The senior officials of the defence ministry have also confirmed that the average early retirement requests have gone up more than five times after the announcement of the sixth  pay commission’s proposal. "From the last week of March till date, we have received more than 100 premature retirement papers from the officers of Army, Navy and Air Force, all in the middle stages of their career and if this continues, it might snowball into a major issue in the coming days," they said.

 

The gravity of the situation would emerge only after three months, as the premature retirement is a long process in the forces and some times it takes as long as two years, the officials said. However, as the armed forces are disturbed over the small pay hike recommended by the sixth pay commission and have aired their resentment to the defence ministry, the union government has asked the central paramilitary forces not to worry about the recommendations.