New Delhi: India will cut the “flab” in its 1.2-million-strong Army in view of the sharply rising amount needed for defence pensions. The move will not affect the Army’s fighting formations.
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday said the Army has been asked to “calibrate” the move, which essentially means that the Army will identify the wings in which it has excess unproductive manpower and its extent.
As part of fiscal accountability, the Centre is also utilising money from an account in which, till June last year, about $3 billion (about Rs 20,000 crore) was lying unused though it was supposed to fund acquisitions by India from the US under the Foreign Military Sales Agreement. The Centre has used money from this account to clear some liabilities and the account now contains about $1.7 billion, Mr Parrikar said.
Sources said it was because of mismanagement earlier that such a huge amount of money was lying idle. The Army is expected to assess its manpower situation in all wings and inform the Centre.
Experts say cutting the Army’s flab makes good sense in order to make it a “leaner and meaner” fighting machine provided there is adequate technological upgradation, which has not happened in India.
