Ex-servicemen to fill NCC vacancies

Punjab Newsline Network Friday, 18 June 2010
CHANDIGARH: Facing manpower shortage, the National Cadet Corps (NCC) is roping in retired armed forces officers on contractual basis to fill vacancies in units as well as higher establishments.

this was stated by NCC Director General Lt Gen RK Karwal, who was in city for a visit to the NCC directorate here, which looks after cadets from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.

The NCC has a sanctioned strength of about 1,500 officers drawn from the three services and at present is short of about 25 per cent regular officers. “This deficiency is commensurate with the shortage of officers in the regular forces,” he said.
http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/ex-servicemen-fill-ncc-vacancies/21318The NCC has plans to increase its cadet strength from 13 lakh to 15 lakh. This will require additional officer strength of 140. About 100 of these will be re-employed officers.

“The Army, too, is engaged in raising new formations and the pressure on manpower is immense,” General Karwal said.

“Re-employing ex-servicemen in the NCC is a suitable means of meeting our needs and we have drafted qualitative requirements that retired officers must fulfil for joining us,” he added. While the commanding officer of a unit would always be a regular officer, re-employed officers would be placed as second-in-command or staff officers in group headquarters and directorates. Final approval from the Defence Ministry for re-employment was expected soon. Selected officers would be on a one-year probation before being approved for tenure of another four years and their remuneration would be at par with their last drawn salary.

“All three services have a crunch as far as the officer cadre is concerned. The minute the services can provide us with the supervisory staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force, we can increase them to almost any level,” the Ministry of Defence’s representative had stated before the committee.

According to the parliamentary report, there are 529 vacancies existing at present in the NCC. On the other hand, the Army is facing a shortage of 11, 456 officers, while the navy and air force are deficient of 1,439 and 1,343 officers, respectively.

General Karwal said there was a move to increase the vacancies reserved for NCC C-Certificate seeking a commission as officers in the Army. These vacancies were being increased from the annual 64 to 90 in the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun for permanent commission and from 100 to 125 in the Officers Training Academy at Chennai for short service commission.
Ex-servicemen to fill NCC vacancies
CHANDIGARH NEWS: NCC To Rope In Ex-servicemen