Short Service Commission is exciting Career option – Idea is to overcome severe shortage in Officer Cadre

The three-day biannual Army Commanders’ conference which began on Monday will debate several measures that needed to be undertaken in order to make Short Service Commission (SSC) more lucrative to youth and give the recommendations to the government. These deliberations will take place over the next two days and on Wednesday there will be interaction between Army officials and Defence Ministry officials to sort out pending issues, army officials said.

The conference is headed by Army Chief General Dalbir Singh and includes the commanders of the six operational commands and one training command.

Addressing the conference, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar laid stress on “national security and capability development,” reiterating that “capacity building was a continuous process that must proceed apace and unabated.”

The Army has been facing a severe shortage in the officer cadre for some time and has been mulling ways to make the service a lucrative career option to attract individuals with “officer-like qualities” in the face increasing corporate options. Ideally, the Army wants more officers in SSC to maintain a younger fore and also reduce long- term financial burden.

However, in the current structure permanent cadre constitute the larger share creating a steep structure with low promotion percentage resulting in early retirements and also adding to long-term financial outlay.

Other major issues to be discussed are proposals for railway projects in the eastern sector, notification of field firing ranges. Operational issues like restructuring of the new mountain strike corps being raised are expected to come up for discussion, the officials added.