dr.umer
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By Jay Shankar
Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Ashok Gowda quit India's army three years ago to build a software business. The reason: The country's economic boom may allow him to earn six times as much in the private sector as he got as a military engineer.
``For serving the nation, I do not get paid'' as much, Gowda said. He used to get 23,000 rupees ($519) a month. ``Now, once the company starts operations, I will be earning 150,000 rupees every month,'' he said from Bangalore.
Gowda shows why India's armed forces face a manpower shortage. The army has 11,371 fewer officers than it needs. The navy has 1,461 unfilled slots. The air force has enough planes for 300 more pilots than it has.
India's economy, Asia's third largest, has grown an average of 8.9 percent a year since 2004, creating more than 60 million jobs, many in technology, health care, automobile manufacturing, entertainment and other higher-paying industries.
Those businesses compete for graduates and engineers with a 1.3 million-member military that maintains a strategic balance between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed nations.
Gowda, 37, a computer science graduate, served 12 years in the army's radar division and later was in the military's Defense Research Development Organization. Now he's setting up a software company to make products for military jets and helicopters as well as commercial airlines.
``Promotions are very slow'' in the military, Gowda said. Though ``the army gives you accommodation, food, clothes,'' he added, ``at the end of the month there is hardly any money in my pocket. That pinches.''
Promotion Denied
V.M. Raghunath ended a 24-year military career 18 months ago. Formerly an air force wing commander, he became a vice president for SBF Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. after being denied three promotions, he said.
``There is a bare minimum a person aspires to meet the standards of his family,'' said Raghunath, 46, in his Bangalore office. ``I was getting about 25,000 rupees in hand. Now it is 150 times more.''
India plans to increase defense spending by as much as 10 percent this fiscal year, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in April. The budget will total $27 billion this year, including money for more aircraft, helicopters and weapons to counter Pakistan's purchases of jets from the U.S.
To counter the lure of private business, the military is carrying out a publicity campaign to entice young people, Defense Minister A.K. Antony said last year.
Kapil Dev
Former Indian cricket captain Kapil Dev yesterday joined the Territorial Army, a voluntary outfit which assists the military during times of natural disasters and war, as a lieutenant colonel to ``inspire youngsters to join the army,'' Virender Singh, an army spokesman, said in a telephone interview from New Delhi today.
Recruitment at the National Defense Academy and the Indian Military College are falling and there is a ``huge queue for retirement,'' said Major General Satbir Singh, 62, a sixth- generation officer who retired four years ago and is part of a group calling for military salary increases.
Last year, 542 army officers sought early retirement, up from 407 in 2006 and 312 in 2005.
In an interview from Gurgoan, Singh said every officer dreams of sending his children to good schools, but many can't afford them. Today, he added, no one wants to marry an officer because the pay is too low to compensate for the risk of being widowed.
``My son-in-law is an officer in the military and earns 25,000 rupees a month,'' Singh said. ``If he joins a private company, say an airline, he will earn 300,000 rupees every month. If the government does not see the writing on the wall, then the security of the nation is endangered.''
No Thanks
Singh said a new pay structure announced last month downgrades lieutenant colonels to the point where civil servants in comparable posts make more. Many personnel are so dissatisfied with pay increases announced at the same time that they are refusing to accept them, he added.
``There has been an erosion of self-esteem, respect and dignity of a soldier,'' Singh said.
With a population of more than 1 billion people, India has an army of 1.1 million, a navy of 47,000 and an air force of 120,000 that has 1,700 aircraft and is the world's fourth largest.
A quarter of the army is deployed in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory that India and Pakistan both claim. The region has sparked two of the three wars the adversaries have fought since their independence in 1947. The army also guards the border with China, where war erupted in 1962, and the frontier with Bangladesh.
Disaster Relief
India also uses its military for internal matters. It was deployed during religious riots in 2002 in the state of Gujarat. It helped relief-and-rescue operations after last month's floods in Bihar and Assam, which affected 6 million people, as well as the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2004 tsunami.
``When bureaucracy fails, the army is called in to handle floods, riots and earthquakes,'' Singh said.
The army's officer shortage is mainly in the ranks of lieutenant colonels and below, which it calls ``the cutting edge'' of its needs because they lead troops in combat.
To retain officers, the army this year proposed paying 1 million rupees for completing 10 years of service and an extra 200,000 rupees a year after that. The army also will grant officers two years ``professional enhancement leave'' and consider post-retirement re-employment, it said. The plan requires government approval.
The army doesn't consider compulsory military service an option for addressing shortages. In a democracy, no one can be forced to do any labor, it said in a statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jay Shankar in Bangalore at jshankar1@bloomberg.net
, not sure whether its implemented of not.
