More opportunities for jawans to become officers in Army

Against the backdrop of cases of face-offs between jawans and their superiors, the Army is planning to come up with a new recruitment scheme to give more opportunities to soldiers to become officers in the force.
The Army Commanders' Conference also approved a proposal to induct 254 more legal officers in the Judge Advocate General's branch against the backdrop of increasing number of cases of indiscipline in the force.
The new scheme called the Special Entry Commission (SECOM), also expected to address the issue of shortage of more than 11,000 officers in the force, was discussed at the conference, Army sources said here.

The scheme will help the Army to address the aspirations of the jawans who are educationally and professionally equipped to take up higher responsibilities, they said.
A note has been sent by the Army Headquarters to the Defence Ministry for final approval of the Cabinet for the scheme, they said.
According to the sources, at present there is a scheme in the force under which jawans can become officers but that is for a very limited personnel.

After the new scheme comes in, a larger pool of jawans would be able to attempt to become officers and go through the Services Selection Board recruitment procedure.

In the last one year, there have several cases of face- offs between officers and jawans and the Army Headquarters has given severe punishments in these cases as a deterrent.
On the additional vacancies in the JAG branch, the sources said the officers would be inducted over a period of more than 10 years.
A study on giving additional vacancies to the legal arm of the force was done by Maj Gen T P S Waraich.