(MENAFN- AsiaNet News) New Delhi: The Indian Navy is continuing to grapple with the shortage of manpower with vacancies for 9,119 posts for sailors and 1,777 for officers. Parliament was informed on Friday that the naval force has a shortage of 10,896 personnel as of October 31.
In reply to a question, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt said in 2021 a total of 323 officers were recruited while 386 in 2022. A total of 5,547 sailors were inducted into the force in 2021 whereas 5,171 in 2022.
It must be mentioned that the Navy has a sanctioned strength of officers and sailors is 11,979 and 76,649. In March this year, the government informed that the armed forces were having a shortage of about 1.55 lakh personnel. Of them, the Army accounted for 1.36 lakh vacancies. In 2021, the government informed Parliament that the shortage in the Army stands at 104053 personnel, while 12,431 posts were vacant in the Navy and 5,471 in the Air Force.
To a separate question, the minister said there is a technology development fund to provide financial assistance to Indian industries, startups as well as academic and scientific institutions for the development of defence and dual-use technologies.
The fund is also aimed at engaging the private industries, especially MSMEs and startups to bring in the culture of design and development of military technology and support them with grant in aid, Bhatt said in his written reply.
On the Non-lapsable Defence Modernisation Fund, Bhatt said it will be available for the modernization of the defence forces and would supplement the regular yearly budgetary allocations by eliminating any uncertainty in the provisioning of adequate funds for various defence capability development and infrastructure projects.
In this regard, a separate mechanism is being worked out by the Ministry of Finance in consultation with the Defence Ministry, to explore a special dispensation to the ministry to operationalize a Non-lapsable Defence Modernisation Fund, he said.
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