Youths from across country protest against no recruitment in armed forces

NEW DELHI:  Youths from across the country aspiring to join the armed forces gathered at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday to protest against the delay in recruitment. They claimed there has been no recruitment in non-officer ranks in the Army, Air Force and Navy for two years. They demanded recruitment rallies should be held.

“It is a matter of our future since there have hardly been any recruitment rallies,” said Kundan Said, an Army aspirant. Many who had been working hard to join the armed forces have crossed the age limit because recruitment rallies were not held, he Kundan.

“It is an appeal to our government to hold these rallies. Otherwise, our dreams will get shattered,” said Jyani Bhawani, another aspirant. These aspirants have run social media campaigns to draw the attention of officials. Realising that the efforts was futile, they decided to converge at Jantar Mantar. The protest was planned to coincide with the Parliament session.

The Indian Army has a sanctioned strength of 12,12,000, but it has a shortage of 81,000 personnel. Currently, there are 12,431 vacancies in Navy and 5,471 in the Air Force. An examination for airmen was conducted last July and results were supposed to be declared in three weeks. The aspirants alleged that the enrollment list is yet to be made public by the Air Force.  “It has been around nine months and we have received no communication from the defence ministry or Indian Air Force,” said Bhawani. 

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Defence, Ajay Bhatt had cited the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for cancelling all the rallies nationwide. Every year, Army, Navy and Air Force used to hold about 100 recruitment rallies covering all regions to induct around 60,000. In 2018-19, 53,431 candidates were inducted and 80,572 more were recruited next year.