NEW DELHI, Jan 15: On the eve of Army Day the Union Cabinet has approved the plan to initiate manpower cuts by 50,000. It has also approved the proposal, to place the monies saved -- about Rs 600 crore -- back into the Army budget for its modernisation programme.The Cabinet approval was intimated to the Army last week, and follows weeks of deliberations as to the fate of the monies saved. In the normal course all savings of Government departments are placed with Consolidated Fund of India, and then dispersed accordingly. But this time Government is committed to restoring the money back to the Army, according to Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources.
A suggestion to this effect was made to the Prime Minister and the Defence and Finance Ministers at the last Combined Commanders Conference in October. While they had concurred with the Army's request that the money be put back into the modernisation programme, the final Cabinet approval came only last week.
The genesis of this force suppression, say MoD
sources, lies in the fact that with budgetary allocations stagnant at roughly 2.2 per cent of GDP, there was just not enough money available for modernisation of the combat and non-lethal equipment.
At his November address to Indian and foreign officers attending the prestigious National Defence College (NDC) in New Delhi, Gen VP Malik, Chief of Army Staff, had declared that, ``while maintaining a balance between consolidation and modernisation, there is a need to reduce manpower costs in order to reduce expenditure on maintenance''. Therefore, the only possibility of savings, added the MoD sources, was in manpower cuts.
The 50,000 figure was arrived at following an in-house Army study that looked into the areas where the savings could be made.
Called the `Non-Field Force' study, the report suggested that, over a period of time, manpower suppressed in certain support elements would not harm the Army's overall combat potential, and will also generate substantial financial savings.
The Army's order on
force suppression will come into effect immediately, say the MoD sources, but will be staggered in its implementation. This will be achieved, the sources say, by freezing recruitment for some of the support services of the Army.
At the same time the practice of having soldiers from the support services on attachment to various static formations and headquarters will cease. ``We will revert these soldiers back to where they are primarily needed. So the immediate negative impact of the force suppression will not be felt, as this trained manpower is again available for essential duties,'' said an Army officer.
On the issue of manpower rationalisation, while speaking at the NDC, Malik had stated that the ``Army has become a status quo organisation. With resources remaining limited, there is no option but to optimise them without letting judgment be clouded by biases, dogmas and petty rivalries''.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
