After Providing Data For Armed Forces Vacancies Since 2019, Govt Zips Up, Cites ‘National Security’
New Delhi: In a somersault from earlier times, the NDA government is citing “national security” as a reason for not declaring the number of vacancies in the armed forces to parliament.
In response to a parliamentary question over vacancies in the armed forces, the Minister of State for Defence, Sanjay Seth, refused the information on grounds of national security.
“The information sought is a sensitive operational matter concerning national security and it would not be in the national security interest to divulge related details in the public domain,” MoS Sanjay Seth said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on August 5 (Monday). The question came from Member of Parliament Anil Kumar Yadav Mandadi who asked whether the government has taken note of the fact that there is “shortage of staff, including officers, soldiers, medical officers etc., in the armed forces,” if so, the details thereof; and whether the government “has taken any comprehensive measures/steps to fill the vacancies.”
But till last year, the Modi government was revealing all details of armed forces’ vacancies.
In May, 2023, the Rajya Sabha was informed, in a written reply by the Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt that the three armed forces were around 1.55 lakh personnel short, with the Army accounting for the maximum 1.36 lakh vacancies. The minister said the situation was being reviewed regularly and numerous measures have been initiated to fill the vacancies and encourage youth to join the Services.
The government told parliament that a shortage of 8,129 officers were in the Indian Army that included Army Medical Corps and Army Dental Corps.
In the Navy, there was a deficiency of 12,428 personnel, the minister said in his reply.
In the Indian Air Force, there is a shortage of 7,031 personnel.
"Shortage of armed forces personnel and mitigating measures are reviewed regularly by the Armed Forces and based on detailed analysis. Numerous measures have been initiated to fill the vacancies and encourage youth to join the Services," MoS Bhatt said.
In December, 2022, the government stated that there were a total of 1,35, 891 vacancies in the three Armed Forces. The total number of over a lakh vacancies were the highest in the Indian Army at 1,18,485, as on July 1, 2022, a total of 11,587 vacancies in the Indian Navy (sailors) as on September 30, 2022 and 5,819 vacancies in the Indian Army, according to a written reply in Lok Sabha by Ajay Bhatt, Minister of State for Defence.
As per the minister then, 40,000 vacancies had been advertised for JCOs/OR in the Indian Army, 3,000 vacancies have been advertised for Agniveer in 2022 in Indian Navy, and 3,000 vacancies have been advertised in IAF as Agniveervayu under Agnipath Scheme in the year 2022.
In August, 2021, Rajya Sabha was told that there were 1,09,671 vacancies across the three services. As per the Ministry of Defence then, the Army had 90,640 vacancies. The IAF and the Navy 7,104 and 11,927 vacancies, respectively. The officer cadre has 9,712 vacancies, with the Army alone having 7,912 vacant posts.
In December, 2021 again when a question was asked that year, it was revealed in parliament that There were 7476 officer vacancies in the army, 621 in the air force and 1265 in the navy.
Recruitments for the armed forces, or the controversial contractual soldiering scheme of Agniveer has been under a cloud of controversy, with a series of issues, from pension and benefits to suitability of contract soldiering to its impact on armed forces’ personnel morale being contested bitterly.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge pointed to at least seven instances when responses were given.
.@narendramodi ji,
Your inept Govt has now started brazenly misleading the nation and undermining institutions by hiding critical data on the vacancies in Armed Forces.
Fake Nationalists of the BJP who imposed the Agnipath Scheme on our patriotic youth, and destroyed their… pic.twitter.com/wyB5EPyf6T
— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) August 6, 2024
He said that the BJP-led government “has been publishing this important information on the number of vacancies of officers, soldiers, JCOs and medical officers, from time to time, since the past few years. We fail to understand, why suddenly you have refused to provide it now. Are you afraid that this information on the number of vacancies will further put a question mark on the ill-thought Agniveer induction which you have unilaterally imposed on the Armed Forces?”
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