Three services face shortage of nearly 10K officers, LS told

The three services are reeling under a shortage of 9,920 officers, according to details provided by the government on Friday.

In response to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt said that the Army has the maximum shortage of 7,791 officers followed by 1,557 in the Indian Navy and 572 in the Indian Air Force.

According to the details provided by Bhatt, the Army had 80 lieutenant generals as of July 1 last year as against the sanctioned strength of 94.

The number of vacant posts in the rank of major general and brigadier are 18 and 19.

A total of 354 posts of Colonel was lying vacant as of July 1 last year while the number for lieutenant colonel is 3650, according to Bhatt.

In the Navy, 72 posts of commodore and captain are lying vacant as of December 31, 2021.

The Indian Air Force has 76 officials in the rank of Air Vice Marshal as against sanctioned strength of 70 as of December 31, 2021.

It has a shortage of 364 squadron leaders and 1073 flight lieutenant.

According to the details furnished by Bhatt, the IAF has 5000 wing commanders against sanctioned strength of 3,898 as of December 31, 2021.

To a separate question, Bhatt said 159 Indian Army personnel have made supreme sacrifice in the line of duty while serving with UN Missions to date.

Replying to another question, he said the number of suicide and fratricide cases have been going down in the armed forces due to a large number of measures initiated including conduct and implementation of recommendations of studies by the Defence Institute of Psychological Research.

To another query, he said the research and development efforts for an indigenous civil transport aircraft have been initiated by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

"The research and development efforts for an indigenous civil transport aircraft have been initiated by HAL to develop a prototype Hindustan-228 aircraft, based on Dornier Do-228 platform," he said.

The HAL has already produced more than 150 military Do-228 aircraft.