The Indian Army is beginning to feel the strain of a manpower crunch stemming from a lingering two-year freeze on recruitment because of Covid restrictions even though the shortage, which is mounting every month, has not blunted the army’s operational readiness at this juncture and units are performing optimally, people familiar with matter said on 15 April.
The army is currently short of around 120,000 soldiers in the personnel below officer rank (PBOR) cadre, with the deficiency growing at the rate of at least 5,000 men every month. It has an authorised strength of 1.2 million soldiers.
The strain on manpower has increased because of the recruitment freeze but efficiency of front-line units has not dropped. There’s no doubt that the army is facing manpower shortage at the unit level. While recruitment has been on hold, the operational and training commitments of front-line units remain unchanged.
The freeze on recruitment has not been rolled back by the government despite the Covid situation stabilising and normalcy returning in several areas — India has resumed international flights after two years, schools have reopened, and shopping malls and cinema halls are back in business, but not the army recruitment drives.
The army used to conduct up to 100 recruitment rallies, on average, every year in the pre-Covid era, with each covering six to eight districts, defence minister Rajnath Singh told Rajya Sabha in March, while responding to a question on the subject. Before Covid struck, the army recruited 80,572 candidates in 2019-20 and 53,431 candidates in 2018-19. To be sure, the pandemic has not affected the officer intake in the army.
The tooth-to-tail ratio means the number of personnel (tail) required to support a combat soldier (tooth). In 2008, the army said it was looking at cutting more than 150,000 troops over the following five years under an overarching cadre review to sharpen the force’s effectiveness and prepare it for future wars.
In the current context, even if the army were to restart the recruitment process today, it will take two to three years to churn out a front-line soldier.
Candidates must be between 17-and-a-half and 21 years of age to get recruited as general duty soldiers in the army. The rare freeze on recruitment has dashed the hopes of an entire generation of young men across the country for whom army was the only career option.
Lakhs of army aspirants across the country have demanded that recruitment be restarted at the earliest and age eligibility be relaxed by at least two years to accommodate those who have become overage because of the hold on recruitment.
