The Indian Military Academy is facing a crisis within on the occasion of its platinum jubilee year celebration. The Army’s leading officer training institute, IMA, is functioning at just one-third of its capacity for the first time in history of the institute. This is a matter of concern for people sitting in country’s defence circles that only 86 cadets have turned up for the 124th course of the IMA Dehradun that has the capacity to train 250 young officers.

However, the army has another reason for this, as the army officials said that the number of applicants has actually not gone down but meritorious candidates are not turning up for jobs in Indian Army. According to them, there has been a downward trend in the quality of candidates applying for permanent commission in past one decade. It has happened again this year.

The National Defence Academy (NDA) is also facing the similar kind of problem. Less than 200 cadets have reportedly joined the 119th course while the capacity of the Academy is 300. It happened for the first time that the number of cadets joining a batch at the academy has gone below 200.

The sharp reduction in the number of cadets in the two important officers’ training academies has once again raised a debate that what was the reason behind the declining number of ‘quality’ candidates to join the armed forces in the country. The Army officials said that this is a dangerous trend emerging that would seriously undermine the Army’s operational abilities in coming days.

According to the data, the Indian armed force is facing a shortage of 11,238 officers. This is being said that lack of a decent stipend, limited growth opportunities and tough working conditions are the main reasons why youths are not turning up to join armed forces.

They have now other better job opportunities than the jobs in army. The reducing respect for the armed forces in society is another factor working behind the declining numbers of cadets in two training academies.

General (retd) V P Malik said:

The fact is that that today there are many other opportunities open to youths and the Army is not one of the preferred ones amongst them. The salaries they are getting for the tough jobs in army is very, very meagre.

Most importantly, the respect in society for the armed forces has gone down. The sixth pay commission is the single hope for army officers who are waiting and hpoing that the concrete steps will be taken by the government to tackle the dangerous trend in the country.