Dip in interest in Army jobs

NEW DELHI: There used to be always heavy rush for the Army recruitment since India's independence, but there is suddenly a dip in interest of the new generation to join the Army in the last two years, both as jawans and as officers and that too at a time of increasing unemployment.

The Defence Ministry admitted this worrying trend in reply to a question in Parliament, pointing out that only 17,257 jawans could be recruited in the first nine months of 2017-18 up to December as against 66,992 recruited in 2014-15. It doesn't expect much difference in the remaining three months of the current financial year.

It disclosed that the annual recruitment of the jawans have started sliding down since after reaching thepeak of 71,434 in 2015-16. It slipped to 52,086 in 2016-17 and if the recruitment in the last two years is taken into account, there is a shortfall of 14,000.