NEW DELHI: With military and
paramilitary personnel
increasingly using social media to air grievances about poor service conditions, the government said on Tuesday such activities violated the discipline of the uniformed forces.
Assembly Election Results
Replying to questions in the
Rajya Sabha
, defence minister
Manohar Parrikar said there were well-laid-down mechanisms of feedback and redressal of grievances in the armed forces. He said the use of social media did not really help resolve issues, and added that soldiers were free to make suggestions to their superior officers, the Army chief or "even me" if required.
The existing feedback mechanism starts from the daily roll calls where grievances can be addressed to company commanders. Battalion commanding officers also collectively address jawans through 'sainik sammelans', at least once a month, to discuss and resolve problems faced by them. Moreover, every soldier is personally interviewed by the CO every time he proceeds on leave, temporary duty or returns to the unit. Suggestion-cum-grievance boxes have also been placed at all headquarters, down to the level of divisions, where all ranks can forward their complaints to the Army chief, the minister said.
T he defence ministry, in a written reply, said, "Improvements in quality of food and clothing is an ongoing process and is undertaken based on feedback from troops and advice of scientific bodies like the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences. Constant endeavour is also made to acquire state-of-the-art equipment for soldiers to enhance their capabilities. " The steps taken range from improved specifications of shoes and helmets and authorisation of individual combat kits to all soldiers to increase in scale of meat/chicken, authorisation of frozen meat and chicken as basic ration at 136 stations and introduction of ready-to-eat vegetables in pouches with longer shelf life.
After a jawan posted a video on social media to criticise the use of soldiers as 'sahayaks' or orderlies, Army chief General Bipin Rawat had last month said that social media was a "two-sided" weapon which could be used favourably but also had "a detrimental effect" on military ethos and discipline.