Improving financial capability of serving and retired defence personnel in India

After US, Russia and China, India ranks fourth in terms of preparedness for conventional warfare and has one of the largest contingents of defence forces in the world. Indian Armed Forces consist of Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. In 2011, India had an active military force of 13,25,000 persons and active reserve force of 17,47,000 persons. In order to maintain a youthful profile of the Armed Forces; approximately 60,000 service personnel are retired/released every year at a comparatively younger age. Majority of these service personnel retire at a time where they have numerous unfinished family and other social responsibilities which necessitates taking up a second occupation. The Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, under Ministry of Defence, lays focused attention to the welfare programmes for ex-servicemen and their dependants including taking care of their pension benefits, re-employment and rehabilitation. Trainings are provided to reorient their skills to accept new civilian jobs. However, unfortunately no significant effort is made to provide them with basic life-management-skills including day to day management of their finances. Because of low level of financial capability, many of them are found to be facing complex financial problems post retirement. United States (US) has initiated several steps to enhance the financial capability of its defence personnel. Evidences of such efforts on the part of Russia and China are not available. However, India as a progressive democratic country, taking clue from the United States, at least now should start taking appropriate steps to increase the financial capability of its serving and retired defence personnel.