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Army needs more officers in a hurry: General Malik

Amberish K Diwanji in the Western sector

The chief of army staff said the decision to cut down the length of the course at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, was unavoidable due to the shortage of officers in the Indian army. The IMA course has been reduced from a year to six months for National Defence Academy graduates and from two years to 18 months for direct recruits.

Speaking to the media while observing Exercise Vijay Chakra, somewhere in the Thar desert, General Ved Prakash Malik insisted that cutting the course would not adversely affect the training of the officers. "It will impair about 10 per cent of the candidates, but 90 per cent will not be affected at all," he said.

The general said the best training for any freshly commissioned officer was in the battalion, and by inducting fresh officers quickly into the army, it would give them greater exposure sooner.

However, he admitted the reason for the course being pruned was the shortage of young army officers, especially at the operational ranks of lieutenants, captains and majors.

Asked if the army was planning to cut down its size of about one million soldiers to become leaner and meaner, the general said such a plan was on the anvil, but would have to be implemented slowly.

"It is relatively simple to cut manpower in areas such as the desert, where machines can effectively take their place. But for counter insurgency operations and for the mountain regions, we need more manpower and hence it is difficult to cut personnel size in these sectors," he pointed out.

General Malik said at the first stage, the army was going in for greater mechanisation in areas where manpower could be cut.

An increased role for information technology was in place, he said, with the aim of making the entire army extremely IT savvy. "We have a plan in place to completely have IT systems in place by 2008, and in a couple of years' time, every graduate from IMA will be given a lap top for operational purposes. The Indian army is geared up for the IT revolution," the general declared.

Asked about the threat from across the borders, he said the Indian army had noticed greater activity and was fully alert to meet any situation. However, he refused to link Exercise Vijay Chakra as 'sending a message across', insisting it was part of the routine. The army chief pointed out that even though there was no need to inform Pakistan about the current exercise since it was being conducted 100 kilometres inside the international border, army headquarters at New Delhi had informed its counterpart in Rawalpindi.

General Malik was hopeful for an enhanced allocation for defence in the Union Budget due to be presented on February 29. But he lamented that more than money, procedural delays within the defence ministry posed a problem.

"It takes years for a file to move and by the time we are sanctioned our request, the entire technology or situation has changed," he said. "Why should a simple purchase order take five years to be implemented?"

The army chief refused to comment on Defence Minister George Fernandes's much touted move to integrate the defence ministry, which will give the armed forces a greater say in the decision making process. At present, the ministry is dominated by civilian bureaucrats.

The chief of the air staff, Air Chief Marshal A Y Tipnis, who was also present to witness Exercise Vijay Chakra, said he was hopeful that the Indian Air Force's long-pending demand for an air jet trainer would be met soon. "The proposal to buy an AJT has been going on for years and I think it will end soon," he said.

Similarly, he was hopeful that India's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft will fly soon, thus giving the IAF a new jet fighter.

"The unavailability of the AJT does not hamper training of our men, it only delays it because they are then forced to train on the MiG-21 and other top of the line aircraft," the air chief said.

ACM Tipnis said while the IAF did not suffer from a shortage of recruits like the army, its shortage of men in operational areas was being met by transferring men from the other sections to the operations side. "Our problem is that the IAF's authorisation is too low. We are asking the government to increase it so that we can hire more men," he said.

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