Shortage of army officers down by 8 percent: Parrikar

The shortage of officers in the Indian Army has been brought down from 26 percent in 2010 to 18 percent in 2015, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. .

However, as on July 1, 2015, the Indian Army was still short of 9,106 officers as it had 40,525 officers against the authorised strength of 49,631 officers, the minister said in a written reply to Vijay Goel.

The minister attributed the shortage of officers to accumulation of posts from time to time, tough selection procedures, difficult service conditions, perceived high degree of risk involved in the service career, apart from the "limited number that could be trained without compromising on the quality of training".

"A number of measures have been taken from time to time to reduce the shortage of officers in the army, including by making Short Service Commission more attractive, enhancing promotional avenues by way of upgradation of posts in select ranks and additional family accommodation through Married Accommodation Project," Parrikar stated in the reply.

"The measures have resulted in progressive improvement with shortage of officers reducing from around 26 percent in 2010 to approximately 18 percent in 2015, in spite of accumulation of about 1800 posts during this period," he added.