Skilling of ex-servicemen lags badly: CAG

The government might have launched a Skill India mission with much fanfare but a defence ministry scheme to train ex-servicemen for a second career has failed to fulfill its objectives with no new initiatives introduced in the last 10 years, an audit report says.

A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) tabled in parliament last week "observed" that the Director General Resettlement (DGR) was not able to meet its objectives in ensuring the re-employment of or rehabilitating the ex-servicemen.

"...thereby expectations of nearly 60,000 service personnel retiring each year could not be fully met," the CAG report said.

"After incurring an expenditure of Rs. 90.98 crore on training during last five years, there was no mechanism in place to ensure that the trained personnel could eventually find re-employment. The existing employment and self-employment schemes being run by DGR were more than 10 years old and had therefore lost their effectiveness in the changing work environment," the CAG report said.

"We found no fresh employment or self-employment schemes were introduced in the last 10 years," it said.

The DGR is an inter-services organization functioning under the Defence Ministry's Department of Ex-Servicemen's Welfare. It was formed to empower retired service personnel with additional skills so that they could find a second career.

The report also pointed out that most of those retiring were in the comparatively younger age bracket of 35 to 45 years and 50 to 55 years on the higher side and require a second career.

Referring to the ongoing schemes, the report said that except the one related to the Mother Dairy started in 1974 for running booths to sell milk and related products, the others have not proved encouraging.

As for a scheme for the allotment of surplus vehicle, the CAG found a steep decline in registrations from 1,082 in 2010 to a mere 67 in 2014, showing the ex-servicemen's lack of interest.

In certain cases, the waiting time for the vehicles ranged from 10 to 20 years, forcing applicants to cancel their requests.

There is also an ESM (ex-servicemen) Coal loading and Transportation Companies scheme launched by the erstwhile Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Defence in 1979. The scheme was to operate in six Subsidiaries of Coal India limited (CIl) for operation of ESM Coal loading and Transport Companies.

The CAG report pointed out that only three subsidiaries are making demands on these companies.

A scheme for allotting cooking agencies and outlets for products of oil companies, the report said, is not effective as the eight per cent reservation for defence personnel had been diluted by extending it to paramilitary personnel and employees of the central and state governments and central and state public sector undertakings (PSUs).