India is moving ahead to becoming a Developed Nation with global overtones by 2047. A key pillar in this is achieving Atmanirbharta in the field of Defence systems, manufacturing and technology. Towards this end, gainfully integrating and utilising the services of Defence officers consequent to their retirement from service, can become a force multiplier. At present, this area is relatively underutilised and at best restricted to ad hoc efforts.
Atmanirbharta is being addressed seriously by the government in the field of Defence manufacturing and services over the past decade with major changes to the Defence Procurement Processes to facilitate and encourage private sector participation in a big way. Going forward, the next big leap in this sector, for its exponential growth, has to be pushed by quality manpower at the mid and higher levels of the industry ecosystem. This manpower resource must have knowledge of utilisation and leverage of Defence systems in an operational scenario. At present there is a big gap in the availability of such skilled and experienced officials in the indigenous industry.
The above requirement and gap can be gainfully filled by chanellising the right Defence officers with appropriate in-service experienced officers due for retirement.
Background and Present Status in The Corporate World
Op Sindoor has clearly proved the decisive advantage that can be accrued by precision, high tech indigenously controlled technology in this field amidst a highly dominating geopolitical environment. The need for planned involvement and growth of the Corporate Defence industry set up is obvious, in order to support India’s march towards Atmanirbharta.
Over the last decade, due to a focussed approach by the government, important domains of the Defence Industry, like Space technology, missile defence, electronics and communications, semiconductors, software services at the heart of weapon platforms, system integration of large platforms like ships and aircrafts, guns and rocket systems, drones and UAVs, ammunition etc are being given due impetus for Atmanirbharta. As such, in addition to specialised Defence Public Sector Undertakings, the domain has been diversified to large Indian Corporate houses like Tatas, L&T, Mahindras etc. Around each of these large and nodal Corporate entities, a complete ecosystem of MSMEs, SMEs, startups are evolving. Ensuring the availability of the right manpower at mid and higher levels of this complete ecosystem is crucial towards the success of Atmanirbharta at the higher levels. For this Corporate ecosystem to attain the right trajectory and growth, the need for quality HR having the right balance of expertise and operational knowledge needs no emphasis.
At present, the intake for this Corporate ecosystem is through routine hiring processes through advertisements and responses to these. Invariably this does not reach the optimal HR pool of retired Defence service officers. Most Corporates follow an open advertisement system with some even approaching retired Defence officers selectively, purely due to lack of a comprehensive database and a driven contact mechanism at the Service Headquarters level. This system fails to touch the large expert pool of retired Defence officers with rich experience in concerned domains. Responses from concerned Service Headquarters ( Army / Navy / Air Force) is at best sub optimal as Service Headquarters are typically focussed towards ongoing service issues and chanellising of retiring officers into Industry is at best taken as beyond their charter.
At the same time, Corporate individual entities (SMEs, MSMEs, start ups and large Industrial Houses) lack the database of individual expertise and availability of retiring / retired Defence Service officers, making it very difficult for them to narrow down suitable candidates.
Referral to Policy issues to facilitate smooth identification and induction of desired talent often involves multiple Ministries and Government departments (such as Deptt of Space, Deptt of IT, Deptt of Telecom, Deptt of Heavy Industries, Deptt for MSMEs and SMEs, Deptt of Defence, Deptt of Defence Production etc.). Invariably, identification of talent of Defence officers does not hold priority by respective Ministries / Deptts as they are busy in their bureaucratic functioning and “main Tasks”. At the Industry level also, multiple apex bodies exist like FICCI, CII, NASSCOM, MAIT etc. which are not structured to deal with the Defence ecosystem in the Industry with regard to coordinating and feeding the right Defence pool. Induction of right talent bottom upwards (startups, MSMEs, SMEs, Identified Corporate entities) can significantly impact the race towards Atmanirbharta.
Hence, a mechanism has to be evolved to facilitate sourcing of the right talent from the pool of retiring Defence Officers by the Corporate ecosystem.
Denovo Thought Towards Developing a Structured Feed to the Defence Industry Utilising The Expert Talent Pool of Retiring / Retired Defence Officers
On an average, 100 Defence officers ( Army – 70 to 80; Air Force and Navy 20-30) superannuate monthly. These officers are between the ages of 54 to 60 yrs with wide experience in various fields. It is also well known that this pool of officers is highly motivated, disciplined and dedicated to work and fit as team players in the Industry. These officers are capable of being employed and working at good efficiency levels for a period of 10 to 15 years easily. At present hiring of such officers is largely ad hoc based purely on chance depending on response to advertisements by the Industry.
It is proposed that funelling of this specified pool of officers is driven by a Committee at Headquarter Integrated Defence Staff (IDS). The Committee must contain specific representatives from each Service Headquarters ( Military Secretary Branch of Army, Pers Branches of Air Force and Navy). These representatives should be in a position to draw out a list of retiring Officers six months hence alongwith a detailed service profile and domains of expertise as applicable to Industry. Details of specialised courses and tenures during service by each of these officers must find mention in order to facilitate the Industry scrutiny and suitability. It may be ensured that these representatives must be from MS Branch in Army Headquarter (and by corollary similar for Navy and Air Force) as delegating this task to any other department like AGs Branch or Directorate of Resettlement or Army Placement Organisation will NOT deliver the desired outputs. At the Industry level , representatives of FICCI, CII etc. must form members of this Committee. These members should be given this monthly list of retiring officers with database of expertise. As the system evolves, these Industry representatives could also demand for suitable candidates as arising from concerned Industries specific to that period. The Committee should also have members at appropriate level from Various Ministries related to the job domain (e.g. MoD DDP, MoIT, MoElectronics etc.). Where required, these Ministry representatives could also submit specific job requirements of particular industries including Public Sector Undertakings wanting to hire for specific positions.
The above Committee must meet monthly and consider names of prospective retiring officers (six months hence). This will give adequate time for analysis and consideration of expertise of each retiring officer by Industry bodies (like CII, FICCI etc.) and thereafter in a iterative process within the Industry, share details with concerned Industry. Over the next 2-3 months Industry bodies would be in a position to compile prospective job fits and job vacancies for each individual retiring officer. Each officer could be sought by multiple industries, thereby giving a wider choice to the concerned officer. Thereafter, the Industry bodies could interact with concerned Service Headquarter, seek additional clarifications or details, if required. and finally submit a list of job offers being available to each prospective retiree. The Service Headquarters could then interact with concerned officers and seek their willingness and choices amongst offered jobs, in writing. On receipt of choices from officers, the same could be sent to concerned Industries who could call for personal meetings by concerned officers, through concerned Service Headquarters, to discuss details before finalising firm job offers.
The above recommended process could be further fine tuned based on real time feedback to establish a tested system. Industry bodies like FICCI, CII should develop their internal mechanisms to disseminate prospective candidate lists to concerned industry clusters.
Conclusion
The above system, if put in place will ensure that the large pool of retiring Defence officers’ capabilities are well utilised for Atmanirbharta in Defence capabilities in line with National goals, while at the same time providing meaningful employment to officers who have given their best for the Nation. However, such a system will have to be closely monitored at the highest level to ensure that all agencies involved are committed to make the system work towards achieving set goals. The process may be further refined through consultation with Industry experts.
Major General R Nagraj, AVSM, VSM (retd), an alumnus of National Defence Academy, Pune was commissioned into the Corps of SIGNALS in Dec 1982. Rare distinction of being selected and moved into General Cadre. He has extensive experience along the Line of Actual Control. Also served as a Planning Officer in the Ministry of Defence, Department of Defence Production and interacted extensively with the Defence Industry.
He has commanded an Infantry Brigade along the Line of Actual Control and commanded an Infantry Division as part of an offensive Corps. Also served as the Major General General Staff at Eastern Army Command.
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MAJ GEN R NAGRAJ, RETD
(Major General R Nagraj, AVSM, VSM (retd), an alumnus of National Defence Academy, Pune was commissioned into the Corps of SIGNALS in Dec 1982)
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