While government debates vote-on-account with opposition in Parliament; Finance Minister’s bravado on ‘better than expected’ revenue collections not withstanding; Indian Army is facing sever fund shortage.
Due to the shortage of funds the Army had put on hold all temporary allowances,including TA/DA advances and claims paid to officers when they travel. The announcement was made public briefly as a notice by army accounts division on its website on Monday.
Hindustan Times reported that The freeze is likely to hit hundreds of officers. The army has 40,000 officers and at any given time, at least 1,000 officers are on the move or on “temporary duty” to attend courses, planning conferences, Court of Inquiries (CoI), or exercises among other things.“Sensitive issues like operational plans, deployments cannot always be discussed on the phone and officers are called to formation headquarters including Army Headquarters… ,” a senior officer who did not want to named, said explaining why officers need to move frequently.
While Ministry of Defence played the issue down, there seems to be a pattern. Recently HAL was facing liquidity crunch as Indian Air Force delayed its payments, the IAF defaulted on payments for constrution of bunkers for to be inducted Rafale fighters.
In the election year BJP led government cannot possibly face any more embarrassment while keeping its nationalistic face and touting for success of revenue collections from GST
