Government set to roll out ‘Tour of Duty’ for recruitment of personnel into armed forces
The Hindu
The move is expected to bring significant reduction in pay and pensions and frees up funds for modernisation of the Army
A first of its kind model, Tour of Duty (ToD), for short term recruitment of jawans into the three Services of the armed forces for a period of four years is all set to be rolled out soon, with officials indicating that the announcement is expected later this month.
“All recruitment in the three services will be through ToD route only. The four year stint will include six months of training and three and half years’ service”A defence source
“All recruitment in the three services will be through ToD route only. The four year stint will include six months of training and three and half years’ service,” a defence source stated.
Army recruitment rallies have been on hold for over two years now due to the pandemic.
Explaining the broad modalities, a second source said that those recruited under ToD would get salary and benefits almost at par with regular personnel and there will be a severance package of around 10-12 lakhs after four years. Government is also thinking of post-ToD career opportunities as those relieved from service would be 21-22 years, and to award them degree or certification, the source stated.
The idea of ToD was mooted about two years back for a period of three years for both officers and jawans for a limited number of vacancies. However, the fine tuned model will be only for jawans. This move is expected to bring significant reduction in pay and pensions and frees up funds for modernisation especially for the Army, which has a negatively skewed revenue to capital ratio in the budgetary allocation.
After the end of four years, they have to leave and another round of recruitments would be done from them for permanent commission. There will be no automatic conversion of certain percentage to permanent commission but another round of recruitment from among them, the first source explained. This means that there would be no permanent recruitment for the next four years in the armed forces.
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