Ministry of Defence & Kotak Mahindra tie-up for jobs to veterans

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Directorate General Resettlement (DGR), an arm of Ministry of Defence, and Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Ltd on Monday to create employment opportunities for ex-servicemen.

After the MoU, Major General Sharad Kapur, Director General (Resettlement) said, “This partnership would bring in more visibility of our Ex-servicemen to the industry and corporates and help in achieving the objectives of providing skilled manpower and giving a dignified second career to our Ex-servicemen”.

Kendriya Sainik Boards (KSB) and Directorate General of Resettlement (DGR) are implementing agencies of schemes for welfare and rehabilitation of ex-servicemen such as girl marriage grant, penury grant and disabled children grant, and the government annually allocates funds for them. The actual expenditure incurred by the KSBs for previous two years 2021-22 and 2020-21 was ₹234 crore and ₹420 crore, respectively, while the budget allocated for 2022-23 was ₹150 crore, the MoD told parliament last year. Similar financial year wise figures for DGR are ₹6.58 crore and ₹6.7 crore respectively and ₹20 crore is the budget allocation for last financial year.

A large number of jawans retire between 35 to 40 years to retain youthfulness in the defence forces. And for that the government tries to assist them with post retirement jobs and self-employment schemes. The government though has reserved 10 percent Group C jobs and 20 per cent Group D posts for ex-servicemen in the public sector, the vacancies are hardly filled entirely. According to a last year’s report, in the defence PSUs alone the figure of re-employment of veterans is quite low. Till 2021, government defence companies employed only 3.45 per cent and 2.71 per cent of veterans at Group C and Group D posts.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh too had appealed earlier to corporates to assist the veterans who contribute immensely in the safety of the country.