Recruitment of Soldiers

Recruitment of Soldiers

From time to time Defence Civilian employees have been raising the demands that they should be granted Field Area allowance and Modified Field Area allowance as applicable to the service Personnel and for providing other allowances like Aeronautical Technical Allowance, Airworthiness Certificate Allowance, Flight Charge Certificate Allowance etc. at par with technical defence personnel. It has not been found feasible to accept these demands as the job requirements and service conditions of Service Personnel and Defence Civilian employees are totally different.

Complaints relating to alleged irregularities / malpractices in recruitment of soldiers have been received from time to time. In cases of complaints of involvement of touts, FIRs, where applicable, have been lodged. During the last three years (2012 to till date), three cases of involvement of Service Personnel were found. Court of Inquiry has been instituted in one case; preliminary investigation has been ordered in another case and in third, the CBI has registered a case.

Proactive measures have been taken on a continuous basis to streamline the recruitment process. These include deployment of vigilance teams, involving police and Government intelligence sources, introducing additional checks and balances in documentation procedure, online verification of documents where feasible, conducting awareness campaigns against falling prey to touts, in-house printing of Question Papers to obviate leakage.

This information was given by Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar in a written reply to Shri P Karunakaran in Lok Sabha today.

source-pib