NEW DELHI – The Indian Army has started implementing reforms aimed atreadying a larger talent pool for crucial tasks and bringing down the ageof those commanding key formations, including along the borders with Chinaand Pakistan, PTI has reported.
Top sources in the defence establishment said the idea behind the reforminitiative was to bring down the age of commands at all levels and ensuredeploying the “right person for the right job” in a timely manner.
“We also want longer tenures of brigade commanders, divisional commandersand core commanders,” a top military official told PTI, explaining theimplementation of a new promotion policy as part of the overall reforminitiative. The Army has begun putting the measures into effect. The issuewas discussed extensively at a meeting of top commanders of the Army lastyear when it was also decided that the organisation’s human resource policywould be reoriented. “The aim of the initiative is to improve the overallfunctioning of the Army,” the official said.
The sources said as part of the new promotion policy, selections for keyassignments had been widened to encourage young officers and increase theirmotivation levels besides ensuring longer tenures at the level of commandand director general. The world’s second largest standing Army has beenundertaking a series of reforms and procuring various weapon systems tobolster its overall capabilities in the wake of evolving security threatsincluding on India’s borders with Pakistan and China.
“The broader aspect of the initiative is to having a bigger talent pool ofyoung officers. A wider selection process is expected to result in bettermotivational levels among the officers,” said the official, refusing todelve any deeper into the initiative. The sources said under the newpolicy, corps commanders may be promoted as army commanders if they have atleast 18 months of tenure left in their service as against the previousrequirement of 24 months.
They said the top brass of the Army has also decided to sternly tackleincidents of indiscipline. In August last year, the government hadannounced major reforms in the Indian Army such as redeployment of nearly57,000 officers and other ranks as well as ensuring better utilisation ofresources.
The reform initiatives were prescribed by a committee headed by Lt Gen DBShekatkar (retd) which had the mandate to recommend measures for enhancingcombat capability and re-balancing the defence expenditure of the armedforces to increase the “tooth to tail ratio”. The ratio refers to theamount of supply and support personnel (termed tail) for each combatsoldier (or tooth).