Rajnath Singh approves abolition of 9,304 posts in Military Engineering Services; decision in line with recommendation of 11-member panel

Defence minister Rajnath Singh has approved the abolition of 9,304 posts in Military Engineering Services (MES) in the basic and industrial workforce.

The decision has been taken in line with the recommendations of the Committee of Experts , headed by Lt General Shekatkar. The suggestions were made to increase combat capability and rebalance defence expenditure of Armed Forces.

“In line with the recommendations made by the Committee, based on the proposal of Engineer-in-Chief, MES, the proposal of abolition of 9,304 posts in MES out of the total 13,157 vacancies of the basic and industrial staff has been approved by the Defence Minister,” the defence ministry said in statement.

According to a report by The Hindu , the 11-member team formed in 2016 by late Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had made nearly 99 recommendations. One of those was to restructure civilian workforce in a manner that part of the work of the MES could be done by staff employed by the department and the rest could be outsourced.

As per a report by The New Indian Express , Rajnath Singh had undertaken a high-level review of the recommendations of the Shekatkar Committee on 20 April. The review was attended by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat, Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh, Air Force head Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Bhadauria, Army chief Gen. M.M. Naravane and Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar.

The MES, which is a part of the Indian Army, provides rear line engineering support to the Armed Forces. It is one of largest construction and maintenance agencies in India.

The MES is structured to design works, executed through contracts under the supervision of officers and staff consisting of both civilians and combatants from the Corps of Engineers.