MoD approves cadre review for JCOs and soldiers in the Army

Within a week of assuming the charges, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman approved a fresh cadre review for the junior commissioned officers and men, impacting the career of nearly 1.45 lakh soldiers of the Indian Army.
 
The decision, cleared by the ministry on September 14, is the first rationalisation of the men in the Army after more than three decades, as the last such exercise was carried out in 1984.
 
As a consequence 479 new posts of Subedar Major; 7,769 Subedars; 13,466 Naik Subedar; 58,493 Havildars and 64,930 Naik would be created in the next five years within the existing ranks.
 
Once these posts are created, there would be 145,137 less sepoys or lance-naik as they would be promoted in these newly created posts with better pay and perks.
 
The new minimum assured career progression route among the JCOr and ordinary soldiers (Other Ranks in the Army parlance) may encourage more youngsters to join the Army as a soldier. As on January 1, 2017, the Army was having a shortage of 25,472 JCOs and ORs.
 
The defence ministry sources said the shortfall was not worrying as the deficiency was being made up gradually. Compared to the situation in 2016, when the deficiency figure stood at 35,174 nearly 10,000 men joined the Army as soldiers within a year.
 
“The new cadre review would be implemented in a graded manner in the next five years. In this fiscal, 30% of the new posts would be created. In the next three years, 20% of the posts would be created in each year leaving only 10% posts for the final year. The total additional financial outgo would be about Rs 20 crore,” said an official.
 
Increased education level in the ranks, use of more technologically advanced weapons and long-term commitment for the counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East were the major driving force behind the cadre review.
 
The first study on the cadre review was done in 2009, based on which the Army moved a proposal in September 2014.