Address shortage of officers in Army with urgency: CAG

New Delhi: Slamming Indian Army for its inability to find suitable candidates in a country with such a large youth population, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report said that the persistent shortage of officers needs to be addressed with a greater sense of urgency.

"It is of critical importance to proactively chalk out and implement a well thought out strategy to incentivise the Short Service Commission (SSC) route and make the short service lucrative enough to attract youth," it said.

The auditor also observed that there is an urgent need for increasing the vacancies for women short service commission (SSC) officers in the Indian Army. As per the report, there were 1,648 women officers, as of January 2020, accounting for just four per cent of the total strength of the commissioned officers.

"The number of prospective women candidates aspiring to join the services was far larger than the vacancies available to them. There was almost full subscription in all the four entry courses for women and the meritorious women candidates who were found medically fit were approximately twice the number of those finally selected based on vacancies," it said.

"The ratio of the release of vacancies in respect of women to men showed a steady increase from 29 per cent in 2015 to 50 per cent in 2019 in Judge Advocate General Women entry, it declined in SSC Women (Technical) entry from 16 per cent to 8 per cent during the same period," the CAG said in its report.

"This points towards the urgent need for increasing the vacancies for women SSC entries, which could facilitate the ongoing efforts of the Army towards addressing the shortage of officers in the longer run," it noted.