The conference will conclude on October 19 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will jointly address Commanders of all three services - the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Sources said that one of the key proposals that the Army Commanders will make to the Ministry of Defence is on re-employing ex-servicemen in the government set-up and not just the existing available openings in the paramilitary and some state police forces.

The Army wants more avenues to be made available to Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks. Most of them retire between the age of 36 and 42 years and are skilled in specialised tasks and have the tenacity required for high-security work.

The Commanders will seek lateral entry for jawans into public sector undertakings (PSU) and also the government sector. They will suggest that departments need to be identified in the government where lateral entry is possible.

A source — giving an example — said that one clear case is of optic fibre cable (OFC) management. With so much business in India riding on telephony and internet, jawans from the ‘signals’ regiment could be used to manage the OFCs running throughout the country.

These jawans are already trained in managing the dedicated OFCs of the forces and know its secrecy protocols and the necessary precautions.

Similarly, the Army trains its jawans in the engineers regiment to repair heavy equipment, machinery and even helicopters.

The government and PSUs can utilise these instead of opting for unskilled workers outside. Also, the men are highly skilled drivers in high altitudes.

Additional natural employment for the jawans are high-risk and skill jobs like working on oil rigs, gas pipelines, oil pipelines - all these are expected to form the proposal.

Besides this issue, the Army Commanders will deliberate on having an enduring human resource promotion policy from the level of Major Generals and above.

(Source India of my dreams)