New Delhi: Defence minister Rajnath Singh has taken strong exception to the issue of inordinate delays in the promotion of military doctors particularly in the critical colonel to brigadier rank (or equivalent ranks in the Navy and IAF) and has ordered that the issue be sorted out on priority basis.
The development has taken place two days after ETV Bharat reported inordinate delays in the promotion of military doctors particularly in the critical colonel to brigadier rank.
Sources told ETV Bharat that the defence minister has pulled up officials responsible for delaying promotional board proceedings on the basis of “insufficient” reasons.
While the armed forces had given the go-ahead for holding the boards, the permission of the defence ministry was not forthcoming.
“What was hampering the holding of the boards was the effort to include more numbers of candidates to be considered for the promotional posts. An element of favouritism at play cannot be ruled out at this stage,” a source said, adding that the issue had led to unease in the ranks.
ETV Bharat had reported on Thursday how not a single military doctor had been promoted in the last two years disrupting the time-bound promotion process and the well-laid-out career progression path of the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) officers.
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Normally every year about 150 military doctors from the AFMS are promoted in the ranks of lieutenant-colonel to colonel (or equivalent), colonel to brigadier, brigadier to major-general and major-general to lieutenant-general.
AFMS is Indian military’s specialist service which caters to the medical requirements of the Indian Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force. The total cadre strength is about 60,000, of which about 6,000 are qualified doctors. On commissioning, the officer can be part of the Army, Navy or Air Force.
The issue has come to a head at a critical time when Indian forces are pitted against the Chinese military across the frontier since April-May when a border row snowballed into an escalation that has witnessed unprecedented militarization by both India and China across the frontier.
On Saturday, the defence minister embarked on a two-day trip to Sikkim to meet soldiers of the Indian Army’s Eastern Command at Sukna. On Sunday, he will do the traditional ‘shrastha puja’ (worship of weapons) at Sherathang in Sikkim before having tea with the soldiers at the 14,140-feet-high Nathu La pass on the India-China border. He will then proceed for the inauguration of road access to Sikkim’s capital Gangtok.
Singh has to be back in New Delhi well in time for the ‘2 plus 2’ dialogue that begins Monday.
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