Not just soldiers, India needs cops, doctors, teachers, judges

This desperate anger must be seen in the context of the lack of defence recruitment for two years, even as millions of younsters trained and waited for it

One young man lost his life in Secunderabad on Friday as violent protests erupted across the country, against Agnipath, the government’s controversial new defence recruitment scheme. Aspiring candidates demanded an immediate roll-back of the scheme, angered immensely by its lack of longevity and job security. Massive mobs set fire to trains, blocked highways, and multiple incidents of arson, stone-pelting, police firing and mass arrests were reported across India.

This desperate anger must be seen in the context of the lack of defence recruitment for two years, even as millions of youngsters trained and waited for it. As per the government’s own data, there are over 122,000 vacancies, including 8,362 in the officer ranks, in the three wings of the Indian military. Of the total 1,135,799 Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks in the Army, 97,177 are vacant. Similarly, the Navy is short of 11,166 sailors against the sanctioned 63,515 posts; the Air Force has 4,850 vacant airmen posts, as per Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt’s written reply to questions raised by CPI(M) MP V Sivadasan in December 2021.

For the government, the timing of these protests could not have been worse as they come right on the back of its announcement that one million people would be hired in “mission mode” over the next one-and-a-half years. This announcement itself has not come a day sooner as both the central and state governments have not recruited key personnel across crucial departments. India is facing a massive shortage of soldiers, judges, policemen, teachers, professors, doctors, nurses and railway personnel, at a time when mass unemployment is one of the greatest challenges plaguing the country.

Unemployment in India rose to 7.83 per cent in April 2022 from 7.60 per cent in March, as per data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The highest unemployment rate of 34.5 per cent was recorded in Haryana, followed by Rajasthan at 28.8 per cent. Both states are currently witnessing intense protests against the Agnipath scheme.

The CMIE also said that the overall urban unemployment rate was up to 9.22 per cent in April from 8.28 per cent in March, while the rural unemployment rate fell marginally to 7.18 per cent from 7.29 per cent.

In May, CMIE reported that the number of employed in India jumped by one million, taking the total number of employed in the country to 404 million, resulting in a drop in unemployment rate from 7.83 per cent in April to 7.12 per cent in May 2022. At the same time, though, it also said that more than half of the 900 million Indians of working-age — roughly the population of the US and Russia combined — are not even looking for a job. Between 2017 and 2022, the overall labour participation rate dropped from 46 per cent to 40 per cent.

The state of our unemployed youth (15-29 years) remains similarly dire. According to the Quarterly Bulletin of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), released by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the youth unemployment rate stood at 20.8 per cent in urban areas during October-December 2021.

No wonder then that in January this year, violent protests broke out in Gaya, Bihar, where jobseekers torched empty train bogeys to protest discrepancies in the railway recruitment exam. Around 12.5 million candidates had applied to take exams for some 35,000 posts. The protests spread from Bihar to Uttar Pradesh after candidates opposed Railways’ decision to hold the exam in two stages. Railways had to eventually suspend these exams and appoint a high-level committee. This, at a time when Railways desperately needs people. As on February 1, 2022, as per data presented in the Lok Sabha, 303,933 posts were lying vacant across Indian Railways.

A similar situation exists in our police forces, too. Some 530,000 posts of police personnel were vacant in the state police forces, a 21 per cent shortfall against sanctioned strength, the Union home ministry informed Lok Sabha in March. The sanctioned strength of police is 2,623,225; the actual strength is 2,091,488; 531,737 posts have been vacant since at least January 2020, with over 100,000 in UP alone, followed by West Bengal (55,294) and Bihar (47,099).

The judiciary is sailing in the same boat. In March, the government told Lok Sabha that over 47 million cases are pending in various courts, including 70,154 in the Supreme Court. Of these, 87.4 per cent are pending in subordinate courts and 12.4 per cent in the High Courts. Some 182,000 cases have been pending for over 30 years!

High Courts serving India’s more populated states have the most vacancies for judges. Allahabad HC has 67 vacancies among permanent and additional posts, the highest among HCs. It is followed by Bombay (36), Punjab and Haryana (36), Calcutta (33), Patna (28) and Delhi (27). Overall, UP again has the most vacancies (1,106), followed by Bihar (569), Madhya Pradesh (476), Gujarat (347) and Haryana (295). The shortfall has hit the subordinate judiciary the hardest. It accounts for 75 per cent of the total backlog of cases. Currently, there are 5,000 vacancies in the lower courts in India.

The bureaucracy is faring no better. Last month, a Parliamentary Standing Committee tabled a report suggesting that the government increase the intake of IAS officers. The committee in its report noted that there is a “huge shortage” of more than 1,500 IAS officers at the central and state levels.

Our healthcare system is in bad health, too. Every allopathic doctor in India caters to at least 1,511 people, much higher than the WHO norm of one doctor for every 1,000 people. The shortage of trained nurses is even more dire, with a nurse-to-population ratio of 1:670 against the WHO norm of 1:300. These figures have been reported by the 15th Finance Commission.

“Among the major states, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and UP are way behind others in government doctors-to-population ratio. The shortfall of nurses is highest in Bihar, Jharkhand, Sikkim, Telangana, UP and Uttarakhand.”

Our education sector is in doldrums, too, according to a UNESCO report filed late last year. There is a disturbing shortage of over one million teachers in schools across India. Around 110,000 schools in India are single-teacher entities. A total of 19 per cent, or 1.116 million teaching positions in schools lie vacant in the country. In rural areas, the number is as high as 69 per cent. The report, ‘2021 State of the Education Report for India: No Teacher, No Class’, found that among states in the Hindi heartland, UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest teacher vacancies. There are over 100,000 vacancies in UP and Bihar alone.

The higher education sector is suffering, too. In December 2021, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Parliament that over 10,000 faculty positions are vacant across central universities, IITs and IIMs. Of the total 10,814 vacancies, 6,535 are in central universities, including IGNOU; 403 are in IIMs and 3,876 are in IITs.

Those promised 1 million jobs? They are there, waiting.

(The writer is a freelance journalist based in Bengaluru)