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Army facing serious crisis
Over 350 suicides in last three-and-half years; more than 25,000 personnel quitting the force in last three years; and three back-to-back instances of stand-off between officers and jawans in the last few months — the Army is facing these serious problems even as it is hit hard by scams and cases of corruption.
Alarmed over the trend, Defence Minister AK Antony has summoned the military top brass on Thursday for a brainstorming session. The immediate trigger for this meeting is the August 8 incident in which a jawan of 16 Cavalry allegedly committed suicide in Samba near Jammu leading to a stand-off between officers and jawans.
The face-off in Samba was preceded by two other similar incidents in Nayoma near Leh and Gurdaspur, indicating the growing distance between officers and men leading to indiscipline.
Vice Chiefs of three Services, Defence Secretary and scientists of Defence Institute of Pscychological Research(DIPR) will take part in the meeting wherein Antony is also expected to seek reasons for the high attrition rate besides the cases of suicide.
The DIPR conducted a number of studies and found that the major causes for suicides in the army were domestic problems, martial discord, stress and financial problems.
In order to address this issue, the Government took some steps like deployment of psychological counsellors, improvement in quality of food and clothing, liberalised leave policy and establishing redressal mechanism for defence personnel in the states.
In fact, Antony last year wrote letter to all Chief Ministers to direct State administrations to deal sympathetically with problems of jawans as most of them hail from rural hinterland. Moreover, jawans are now allowed to go home three times in a year from the place of posting.
On the issue of jawans and officers leaving the army, sources said tough working conditions with long periods of separation from family and better job opportunities in other sectors including Government and private are some of the reasons for this phenomenon.
The attrition figures have sent the alarm bells ringing for the Government given that over 10,000 personnel quit the force in 2011 alone.
Sources also admitted that a career in the armed forces is no longer the preferred choice of young men and the Army alone is facing a shortage of more than 12,000 officers. The armed forces conduct campaigns regularly in various parts of the country to attract youth but such efforts have not yielded desired results.
Over 350 suicides in last three-and-half years; more than 25,000 personnel quitting the force in last three years; and three back-to-back instances of stand-off between officers and jawans in the last few months — the Army is facing these serious problems even as it is hit hard by scams and cases of corruption.
Alarmed over the trend, Defence Minister AK Antony has summoned the military top brass on Thursday for a brainstorming session. The immediate trigger for this meeting is the August 8 incident in which a jawan of 16 Cavalry allegedly committed suicide in Samba near Jammu leading to a stand-off between officers and jawans.
The face-off in Samba was preceded by two other similar incidents in Nayoma near Leh and Gurdaspur, indicating the growing distance between officers and men leading to indiscipline.
Vice Chiefs of three Services, Defence Secretary and scientists of Defence Institute of Pscychological Research(DIPR) will take part in the meeting wherein Antony is also expected to seek reasons for the high attrition rate besides the cases of suicide.
The DIPR conducted a number of studies and found that the major causes for suicides in the army were domestic problems, martial discord, stress and financial problems.
In order to address this issue, the Government took some steps like deployment of psychological counsellors, improvement in quality of food and clothing, liberalised leave policy and establishing redressal mechanism for defence personnel in the states.
In fact, Antony last year wrote letter to all Chief Ministers to direct State administrations to deal sympathetically with problems of jawans as most of them hail from rural hinterland. Moreover, jawans are now allowed to go home three times in a year from the place of posting.
On the issue of jawans and officers leaving the army, sources said tough working conditions with long periods of separation from family and better job opportunities in other sectors including Government and private are some of the reasons for this phenomenon.
The attrition figures have sent the alarm bells ringing for the Government given that over 10,000 personnel quit the force in 2011 alone.
Sources also admitted that a career in the armed forces is no longer the preferred choice of young men and the Army alone is facing a shortage of more than 12,000 officers. The armed forces conduct campaigns regularly in various parts of the country to attract youth but such efforts have not yielded desired results.
