Name: Govt 'cuts flab' in troops to make way for technology
Uploaded: 2007-10-08T23:24:26+05:30
Description: Shrink or perish seems to be the mantra.

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New Delhi: The message is clear: cut the flab. For the first time in a decade, the Government is asking India's military to reduce its numbers. And it has the Ajai Vikram Singh Committee report to push for a leaner and futuristic military. 
 
The mantra is to save money for acquiring technology. The services appear to have relented and assured the Government that they will bite the bullet. 
 
"The future lies in technology and reducing revenue expenditure which can happen only by reducing manpower which is most expensive,” said AOC-in-charge, Western Air Command, Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia. 
 
Manpower costs form an overwhelming part of the Rs 96,000-crore Defence Budget. The 1.2 million-strong Indian Army, the world's second-largest, is left with only 30 per cent of its share of this budget for modernising. 
 
Even for the much smaller Air Force, the amount is only 50 per cent. Planners are beginning to see these figures as untenably low. 
 
So now, the Indian Air Force and Navy are increasingly coming around to the point of view that the future of India as a military power lies in force reduction. But it's the Army which has had to fight protracted proxy wars which just won't talk of lesser numbers. 
 
The Government understands, and has sugar-coated the agenda for troop-cut: the requirement for numbers at the moment will be met through officers on a short-service commission, which will also save pension costs. 
 
The regular cadre of the Army will reduce to about 21,000 from the present 35,000. 
 
The number of Air Force regulars will drop from 10,500 to 7,300. Thirty per cent of its fliers will do short-terms and the Naval cadre would shrink to about 5,000.

Govt 'cuts flab' in troops to make way for technology

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