Tour Of Duty – 3 Year Short Service – Burning Issues – Free PDF

Types of entries/service tenure

• Permanent Commission
• Short service commission

1. NDA
2. CDS
3. OTA
4. Technical entries

Tour of Duty – An ‘Internship’ with military

• The Indian Army is considering a proposal to attract young working professionals to join the force for a three-year tenure as officers and in other ranks for a variety of roles.
• The ‘Tour of Duty (ToD) for three years is being mulled in the wake of “resurgence of nationalism and patriotism” in the country.
• The proposal is a shift from the concept of permanent service towards an internship or temporary experience of military life
• There will be no dilution of selection criteria.

Benefits of a 3 year service

• Fulfils the aspirations of those seeking a ‘thrilling’ career but not for life
• Better prospects in corporate world after the year tenure.
• Many corporates have indicated that ToD officers joining them at 25-27 would be preferable to the current SSC workforce joining them at the age of 33-34 after 10/12 years of service.
• This is an ideal opportunity for those individuals who do not want to make defence services their permanent vocation, but still want to experience the thrill and adventure of the military profession and the glamour of donning the uniform.

Inverse Induction 

• The Inverse Induction model will look at bringing personnel recruited by CAPFs into the armed forces’ fold for about seven years, before they go back to their respective recruiting organisations.

The economics for Govt.

• The cumulative cost of pre-commission training, pay/allowances, proposed severance packages, leave encashment and other costs for short-service commissioned (SSC) officers released after

1. 10 years – Rs 5.12 crore
2. 14 years – Rs 6.83 crore

• However, similar costs for those released after three years will be Rs 80- 85 lakh.
• Similarly the financial benefit to the Army emerging out of a Jawan employed on ToD for three years against a Jawan with 17 years of terms of engagement is Rs 11.5 crore.
• In case of a battle casualty, Tour of Duty personnel would be given the same benefits as regular officers, such as liberalised family pension, ECHS facility, gratuity, and ex-servicemen status.
• ToD model would eventually result in significant reduction in salary and pension budgets

Defence pensions

• Budget for 2020-21 has allocated Rs 1,33,825 crore to defence pensions.
• In 2005-06,this was Rs 12,715 crore (10 times increase in 13 years)
  • % of the total expenditure of the central government expenditure
• 57 % of Defence Ministry Budget = salaries  + pensions
• 4 % of Defence Ministry Budget  = pensions
• 6 % of GDP
• The more the government spends on salaries and pensions, the less it can spend on modernising the armed forces.
• Defence pensions allocation is now Rs 15,291 crore more than the Defence Ministry’s total capital expenditure.
• E. goes towards modernisation of the armed forces.
• Pensions bill now nearly equals the salaries bill

ToD could benefit modernisation

• The idea is expected to be tested on around 100 officers and 1,000 jawansin the first go.
• They will be trained for the first year of the three-year period.
• The savings on enlisting just 1000 jawans via ToD jawans could be Rs 11,000 crore.
• Crucial money for new weapons and tech.
• Indian army wants to keep its fighting force young while reducing the expenditure on pensions and other emoluments.

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