DEFENCE NOTES
New Delhi, 21 August 2006
Posting Flaws In
AFMS
SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS
IN Field AREAS
By B.K. Mathur
Small matters, at times, turn out to big on crucial moments.
More so for the Defence forces, where men are equally important, if not more,
than the machines. The forces can be
equipped with highly sophisticated and expensive machines, as the Defence
Ministry has planned for the next five years, but the morale of the jawans,
airmen and the seamen has to be kept high in time of a war. One of the main factors to provide this is
the public sympathy and support, as one saw during the wars free India’s armed
forces fought in 1965 and 1971. As the
Army units moved towards the war front in special trains and other civil and
military transport, the forces were given a fitting send-off by men and women
all through the route.
More than 35 years have elapsed since the Indian armed
forces fought a major war (Kargil in 1999 cannot be described as a war). Today, if there is a major war on our
borders, a possibility which cannot
be ruled out on all fronts of the country, the forces may not get the same
civilian sympathy and support for various reasons, significant among them being
lack of respect for the forces, lack of planning and uneasy relationship
between the civil and military in view of the latter’s increasing contact with
the people of every kind during deployment in aid of civil power. Take, for example, the planning flaws. How
will you react if your land is acquired for military use without adequate
compensation, relief and rehabilitation package? Curse those who have grabbed it!
Likewise, how will you react, if in uniform and ready to
move to the front area, if there is no adequate medical facility available
there? Hell with the military career; there are so many other employment
avenues for the youth with good IQ. These may be small matters for the Defence
planners whose main aim today is to acquire expensive weapons and weapon
systems. But they are significant and
crucial for the forces. The two issues,
“land grab” and medical crunch have been studied recently by the Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Defence Ministry (2005-06). In its 12th and 13th
reports tabled in the two Houses recently, the Committee has made critical
reviews of rehabilitation of persons displaced by acquiring their land without
responsibility to ensure proper compensation and rehabilitation and medical
facilities.
In its 12th report, the Committee expressed deep concerns over the shortage of doctors in
the field units to ensure a proper medical care to the troops. Let us take the medical aspect first.
Shortage of doctors in the armed forces is an old story. Young medical graduates are gradually turning
commercial minded and are not keen to join Government service, leave aside the Armed
Forces Medical Service (AFMS).
Shockingly, as many as 142 doctors quit the forces in two years, between
2003 and 2005. The issue was raised in the Lok Sabha last week and
Defence Minister Mukherjee informed the MPs that the doctors left either after
being superseded or on compassionate
grounds.
The disclosures made to the Parliamentary Standing Committee
are alarming and loud and clear about lack of planning and ineffective command
and control of the medical corps.
Knowing full well that fully-equipped field units are morale boosters
for troops in operational areas, there is shortage of doctors in field units. Surprisingly,
the number is far more than the authorized strength in Command hospitals and in
Delhi and
Mumbai. According to the Defence Ministry figures, about 450 doctors are posted
in Delhi
against the authorized strength of 250.
Similarly, the Command hospitals are having 543 doctors, though the
sanctioned number is only 331. Obviously,
as this writer keeps on pointing out time and again that “civil pollution” has
entered the forces in a big way, thanks to the increasing “civil entry” into
the Cantonments and military deployment for civil duties.
Now, take the “land grab”, which the land owners can’t help
or protest against, because the area is acquired for military use, meaning national
defence. It is another matter that the Cantonments
across the country have large areas
lying unused for years. Take, for
example, an observation of the Standing Committee which was “given to understand
that in project like the National Defence Academy (NDA), 8000 acres of land was
acquired, out of which not more than 25 per cent is utilized even after 60
years”. During the study visits of the Committee
to various projects, it had observed that there are large areas of Defence land
lying unoccupied and they have not been given back to the ex-landlords. In this connection, it needs to be remembered
that the Standing Committee in its 5th report on Cantonment Bill
2003 had recommended a separate law on Defence land, which has not happened so
far.
The Committee has also observed that the Ministry of Defence
acquires land for temporary use of the armed forces like training, mobilization
of forces and day-to-day operational purposes.
As a result the land owners/farmers have to lose their standing crops
and other properties. But the land owners do not get adequate compensation for
their standing crops and other properties. The Committee had been told that
“there was no policy for giving rehabilitation assistance
as a welfare measure to the persons displaced by the acquisition of their land
for defence purposes”. In regard to
compensation, the Ministry pays some money to land owners through the State Governments,
which routes it to the Collector concerned. The process
leads to umpteen cases in various courts of law.
The Defence Ministry informed the Committee that as many as
15,600 cases of dispute over compensation were pending in various courts across the country ---from the district courts to the
Supreme Court. There are also execution
cases, since under the Land Acquisition Act there is an in-built provision for
the enhancement of compensation. If anybody is aggrieved with the Award amount
declared by the Collector, he goes to the reference court and if he is still
not satisfied he goes in appeal to the High Court, and on to the Supreme Court.
These legal processes have been
going on. In most of these cases the acquisition and compensation has been
compensated to the utter helplessness and anger of the landowners against the armed
forces.
Greater concern is created because the Defence Ministry has
been acquiring vast tracts of land before independence and till date for the
“operational use” of the armed forces and other defence purposes. Private land is being acquired under the age-old
Land Acquisition Act (LAA), 1894 and the Defence of India Act, 1939, framed
during the British time. These laws are colonial in nature. Although they have
been amended from time to time, they are totally inadequate to meet the present
needs and aspirations of the people. Such a need was amply highlighted when the
Committee recorded evidence of the representatives from the Union Ministries of
Law and Rural Development and State Government officials.
Undoubtedly, there is an urgent need to have a comprehensive
and more democratic legislation to deal with an important matter relating to
land acquisition for military purposes and a better package worked out for
compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation of the affected land owners as a
gesture of goodwill to ensure their sympathy and support to the cause of
national defence. Also significant is the need to ensure that the military
personnel posted in forward areas are provided good and timely medical
aid. Posting of doctors of the AFMS to
border areas in difficult terrain is a crucial matter, not a small matter in
military planning. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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