Govt to roll out new recruitment process for jawans

The Department of Military Affairs has finalised a radical proposal for future recruitment to the armed forces. The Army will be the first to try out the concept, which involves recruiting some soldiers for a fixed period of three years. 

The recruitment model was first proposed in 2020, with the goal of reducing Army officer shortages while also addressing rising defence pension costs. The rules are likely to be changed to allow only short-term contract soldiers to be recruited.

The proposed new recruitment model, known as Tour of Duty (ToD), is in the final stages of development and fine-tuning, with a series of meetings held over the last two weeks.

The ToD, which is expected to be implemented on a trial basis first, aims to recruit soldiers for a set period of time in order to reduce the burden of pay raises and pensions on the nearly 13-lakh-strong force, according to sources.

The idea for short-term contract recruitment was first proposed by the late Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Bipin Rawat, who was looking for ways to cut the burgeoning pension bill as well as revenue expenditure on salaries and other costs.

According to sources, the current draught of the scheme states that the Tour of Duty model will eventually be used to recruit all soldiers in the Indian Army. Around 25% of them would serve in the Army for three years, with the remaining 25% serving for five years. The remaining 50% would remain in the Army until they reached their retirement age.

The proposed recruitment model may not be applicable to officers and only soldiers could be employed under it. The Army has a shortage of 7,476 officers as per data presented in Parliament in December last year.

The original ToD proposal stated that pre-commission training, pay, allowances, gratuity, proposed severance packages, leave encashment, and other costs would total Rs 80-85 lakh for each officer recruited through the scheme.

"At the moment, an SSC officer who retires after 10 years costs Rs 5.12 crore, and one who retires after 14 years costs Rs 6.83 crore. "1,000 jawans recruited under the ToD could save Rs 11,000 crore," the proposal stated, adding that the money saved could be used to modernise the Army.

The Army is awaiting approval from the Defence Ministry before launching this proposal, so the exact date of its launch is unknown.