Army to delegate power to JCO's to deal with staff crunch

Nagpur, Nov 26 (UNI) The Indian Army is delegating power to Junior Commissioned Officers (JCO's) to take the load of commissioned officers as part of its efforts to deal with the shortage of staff, Lt Gen O P Nandrajog (rpt Nandrajog), General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Command (Lucknow), has said.

Talking to reporters at the Brigade of The Guards Regimental Centre at Kamptee, about 15 KMS from here, yesterday, Lt Gen Nandrajog said that JCOs were being given the authority to deal with some of the non-critical functions in the Army, like conducting courts of inquiry.

This took some of the burden off the commissioned officers to enable them to concentrate on the critical tasks, he said.

The army was being empowered and encouraged to handle the nitty-gritty of such tasks to make up for the deficiency of staff in various units of the army, Lt Gen Nandrajog said.

The race for materialistic gains is the major hurdle for youngsters in their way to taking up a respectable and challenging career in the defence forces, he said.

Parents and educational institutions must make efforts to encourage children to don the uniform, he said.

Lt. Gen. Nandrajog was in Kamptee to participate in the golden jubilee celebrations of the Brigade of The Guards, which was raised at Kota in 1956. The Regimental Centre was moved to Kamptee in 1976, and trains new recruits for 22 battalions.

Various events were held to mark the golden jubilee, including a 25-day 1,647 km cycling expedition from Naushera in Jammu and Kashmir to Kamptee, and a trekking expedition to 22 forts of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

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