A first of its kind model, the Indian Army has come up with a new recruitment model; it is called the Tour of Duty in which civilians can be recruited into three services of the armed forces for four years.
Unlike short service commission officers where an officer serves in the Indian army for 10 years, the latest model of Tour of Duty offers a comparatively low duration of service.
The eligibility criteria however remain the same debarring the length of the service. Meanwhile, 25 per cent of the soldiers who will be recruited under the new scheme will be re-enlisted for full service after a month.
The four-year stint will include six months of training and three and a half years of service. In the past few months there have been various discussions circling the new recruitment scheme and the nuances it brings to the table.
The scheme attracts those who seek to join the armed forces without adopting it as a full-time career. However since no proposal gets traction just like that, the proposal was pushed by several drivers.
And in the next few minutes of this article, we will decode the pro and cons of the Indian Army’s Tour of Duty process. How will the Tour of Duty be beneficial for the Indian Army? The basic thought process behind the proposal is to reduce expenditure on military pensions. India’s budget for the financial year 2022-23 allocated is Rs 5.25 lakh crore for defence which includes the defence pension component of about Rs 1.2 lakh crore and a reduced pension component will lead to a larger capital outlay.
With this, in view, the proposal is believed to envisage recruiting personnel into the army for short tenures on a volunteer basis. It will further help in producing a better and large number of soldiers in less time and with fewer investments.
The money saved by this process could be used to focus more on the advancement of technology and military modernisation.
Secondly, the tour of duty will serve as a golden opportunity for India’s youth to experience military life without having to join the armed forces on a long-term basis. It will eventually produce better disciplined and experienced youth who could venture out into other fields after the tenure of their service.
Anchored on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s major reform of reducing expenditure and age profile of defence forces, the best among the chosen lot of soldiers will have the opportunity to continue their service in case vacancies are available. While those who leave the forces after a period of four years will have a plethora of options on their table. Several corporations will show interest in reserving jobs for trained and disciplined youth who have served their nation. The Tour of duty soldiers will ensure that a large quantum of the workforce is dedicated and skilled thus enhancing the output of the government and the private sector. Possible disadvantages of TOD While there is a clarion call for the tour of duty scheme to be implemented, there are also voices that are vehemently against it. Veteran army officers have the opinion that the step will not be successful owing to the short duration of the service, they believe that instead of devoting fully to the army, there are high chances that these intern soldiers could be focusing on just building their resume. Meanwhile, there are also apprehensions about how the duration of the tenure is too less. TOD soldiers will not have the opportunity to attend professional courses where a soldier is groomed through several training courses like the YO’s course, Platoon Weapons course and various other courses where the actual grooming takes place. A TOD soldier will never get the time or the bandwidth to be trained or learn the ethos of the ‘paltan’ and the army. In the end, the new ‘Agneepath’ scheme is structured in a very business-like feeling where a message that a potential youth gets is number one that you can serve in the Indian Army without any shackles of commitment. Secondly apart from getting the prestigious stamp of military duty, you can earn more than double the pay as compared to a fresher in the corporate world.
