How is the Indian Army Tackling the Shortage of Officers in its Ranks?

To meet the shortage of officers in the army, a plan is being made to open a new service selection board as per breaking news in Hindi and other sources. Three new service selection boards will be opened by the end of this year. At present there are 12 service selection boards in the country. 

New Service Selection Boards (SSB) will be opened to meet the shortage of officers in the Indian Army. Indian Army is working on this and is preparing to open three new SSBs by the end of this year. In total there are currently 12 boards which will soon become 15. 

As per aaj ka taja samachar there will be only four selection centres and new boards will be under the operational control of some of the existing boards. The Army currently has four selection centres, which are Jalandhar in north zone, Bhopal in central zone, Bengaluru in south zone and Allahabad in east zone. 

Source: CareerPower

Under which of existing centres will the new boards operate?

According to Army sources quoted by breaking news in Hindi, the three new SSBs that are going to be opened will operate under the operational control of the Jalandhar, Bengaluru and Bhopal centres respectively. 

At present there are three boards under the Bhopal Selection Centre of the Indian Army and with the addition of a new board the Bhopal centre will now have control over four boards. 

There are two boards each under Bengaluru and Jalandhar SSB centres and in both, one more board each will be opened under their respective operational control. 

Under the Allahabad SSB centre there are already five boards and that could be the reason why no further centres have been assigned to it. At present there is a shortage of about 9,900 officers in the army and it is mostly at the company commander level. 

According to aaj ka taja samachar quoting army sources, this shortage is gradually reducing and will reduce further in the coming time and this is because the level of attrition is quite low at present. 

Attrition refers to how many people leave the army for multiple legitimate reasons, including retirement. The number of officers retiring from the army is less than the recruitment.

More SSB centres will result in more officers joining the army 

The Indian Army official quoted on breaking news in Hindi, said that having more service selection boards obviously allows more candidates to be screened and interviewed for selection. This will effectively remove the shortage of officers in the army. 

More officers will be required to evaluate more candidates and hence more officers are being trained for the same. Every year more than 10 lakh youth apply for the Indian Army officers’ role and around 80,000 were shortlisted for SSB interview. 

In 2020-21, 1,250 youth cleared SSB and attended pre-training; in 2022, 1,340 youth were selected and in 2023, 1,700 candidates were selected as per reports on breaking news in Hindi. 

Indian army is methodically tackling the shortage of officers 

There are a total of 19 ranks in the Indian Army, out of which nine are officers. At present, about 6,000 officer posts are vacant in the army. According to an army official, the shortage of officers is continuously decreasing as the army is doing everything necessary to meet these shortages. 

The army is also working on a broad-based plan to meet this challenge and that is expected to further improve results in the future. 

FAQs 

Q. What is required for a candidate to qualify for Service Selection Board [SSB] interview for military officer cadre? 

Ans: In order to qualify for the SSB interview a candidate must first clear the Combined Defence Services [CDS] or National Defence Academy [NDA] written examination. 

Q. After clearing SSB interview where do the successful candidates go for army officers’ training? 

Ans: The SSB interview for army officers takes place at two levels: 

i) CDS – For candidates between the ages of 19 and 25, whose minimum qualification is a bachelor’s degree 

ii) NDA - For candidates between the ages of 16 years 6 months and 18 years 6 months