Defence ministry has admitted that the recruitment of defence personnel in the last was only 37,301 personnel against an average annual vacancy of 60,000. The recruitment process was hit by Covid Pandemic.
Rajnath Singh, the defence minister said in Lok Sabha that In 2019, total recruits were 95,843 with the Army topping the list with 81,812 personnel followed by the IAF with 7,548 and the Navy accounting for 6,483 personnel. He was eplying to a question.
Rajnath Singh said that ” Currently, there is a shortfall of 7,799 officers and 1,08,685 soldiers in the Army; 1446 officers and 12,151 sailors in the Navy and 572 officers and 5,217 airmen in the Indian Air Force”
The defence minister said that “… because of COVID pandemic, and the recruitment rallies had to be curtailed for the Army.” However, after easing away of the pandemic, 1280 officers and 12091 soldiers were inducted in the Army for the year 2020, and 1065 officers for the year in 2021. tThe impact of the pandemic was lesser in case of the Navy and the Air Force, which follow an online recruitment process
In the case of the Navy, 377 officers and 2772 sailors were inducted in the year 2020 and 409 officers and 5547 sailors in the year 2021. Similarly, in the case of the Indian Air Force, 261 officers and 8,423 airmen were inducted during the year 2020 and 467 officers and 4609 airmen in the year 2021.
The recruitment process for the year 2022 under the newly launched ‘Agnipath’ scheme is already started by the threeservices. In case of the Air Force, the online registration process was opened from 24th June to 5th July for 3000 posts. The registration process for the Navy is open from July 15 to 30 for 3,000 posts.
The registration process for Army has commenced. Army will start holding arounf 85 rallies in various parts of the country for 40000 posts from August 10.
The defence minister informed Lok Sabha that shortage of officers and mitigating measures are reviewed regularly by the armed forces and measures are initiated to fill the vacancies based on detailed analysis.
