Army officers' promotion held up over policy confusion

The outcome of the promotion boards of 63 major generals from the 1975 batch and another 139 brigadiers from the 1978 batch held in January is yet to be announced.
The two boards were originally scheduled to be held in October 2010.

Though the delay is attributed to a proposal from the army headquarters for changes in the promotion policy for senior officers, at present with the defence ministry for a final decision, the army says the boards results and the policy changes have no connection.
It is already time for the next set of boards, which usually convene twice an year, to meet this month.

The confusion relates to a recommendation from Army Chief General V.K. Singh in 2010, soon after he took over in April that year, for reverting to a pre-2009 system of categorising senior officers from the rank of brigadiers to lieutenant generals under a single stream for both command and staff appointments.

This recommendation, in effect, would over turn an August 2009 policy, implemented under recommendations of then army chief General Deepak Kapoor, to divide the senior officers in to "command and staff" and "staff only" streams, the sources said.

Under this policy, the "staff only" stream officers would never get to command an operational formation and would be stuck with appointments as staff officers only.

General V.K. Singh also wanted the changes in how the eligibility of officers was quantified through a computerised weightage system on the basis of their performance in previous ranks in both command and staff appointments, higher command courses and award of gallantry and meritorious service medals.

"While the defence ministry has approved the proposal on computerised weightage, it is yet to approve the single stream system that was proposed. The defence ministry has said it needs more time to analyse the proposals before taking a final decision on it," the Military Secretary at Army Headquartes, Lieutenant General G.M. Nair, said Wednesday.
"There is no spat between army and the defence ministry, as has been reported in a section of the media. There is always a dialogue between us. We (army) have our own point of view and they (defence ministry) have theirs. If they have a superior logic, we go along with it," Nair said when asked about the changes in the promotion policy.

The defence ministry officials, when asked about the promotion policy changes, said they needed more time to consider all aspects of the army chief's recommendations before taking a decision.

They did not specify any time frame by which the "single stream" policy would be accepted or rejected.