Short of officers, IAF drive to attract talent

Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 21

As shortage of officers crops up again after a brief spell of having no deficient vis-à-vis the authorised strength, the Air Force is revamping its publicity campaign to attract the youth. The IAF is roping in private firms to carry out market surveys to assess the impact of publicity campaigns and also to understand the mindset, aspirations, lifestyle parameters and influencers of prospective candidates, sources said.

In December, the Ministry of Defence had told Parliament that the IAF had a shortage of 192 officers against the sanctioned strength of 12,584, a deficiency of about 1.5 per cent. In 2017, the Air Force had reported that there was no deficiency in its officer cadre, a significant achievement considered that over the past couple of decades the shortfall, which at times had crossed over a thousand, was a cause for serious concern, particularly in the flying and engineering branches.

The other two services continue to battle officer shortage, though it has come down over the past few years. The Army, with an authorised strength of 50,028 officers, has a deficiency of about 14 per cent at present and the Navy, with an authorised strength of 11,415, of about 13 per cent. Sources recall that during the late 1990s when the authorised strength of the Army was about 42,000 officers, the shortfall had crossed 13,000.

IAF officers said while their earlier publicity campaigns had yielded good results, there is a need to quantify the impact to plan and fine-tune recruitment strategies for the future. Print and TV advertisements, social media, motivational visits to educational institutes, hoardings, exhibitions form part of the media blitz.

A research framework has been drawn up by the Air Headquarters and the responses of the youth that have been exposed to the IAF’s publicity and those who have not seen such campaigns would be analysed. 

Need to fine-tune recruitment plan

• IAF officers said there was a need to quantify the impact to plan and fine-tune recruitment strategies for future
• Print and TV advertisements, social media, motivational visits to educational institutes, hoardings, exhibitions, IAF website and mobile gaming apps form part of the media blitz