Army wants single policy for promotion of Maj Gen

New Delhi: Indian Army is at unease over the two-stream policy of promotion of Major Generals to the rank of Lieutenant Generals and has asked the Defence Ministry to revert to a single-stream policy for promoting officers.

Even while a decision is awaited on this, the government has promoted 23 Major Generals to the next rank of Lieutenant Generals under the existing two-stream policy.

"Out of the 23 officers, 16 have been promoted to the rank of Lt Generals under Command and Staff stream while seven have been promoted under the Staff stream," Army officials said here.

The decision to promote the officers was taken during the recent Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Under the two-stream promotion policy, Major Generals are promoted to their next rank either in the 'Command & Staff' Stream or the 'staff' Stream.

Officers promoted under the Command & Staff streams are eligible for becoming Army Commanders and can hold the post of General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), while those elevated under the 'staff' Stream can become Chief of Staff (COS) within the commands.

GOC-in-Cs are the senior most officers in all the seven commands of the Indian Army, responsible for all the operational aspects and with more powers as compared to the COS.

The officials further added that Army's proposal for single-stream policy is still pending with the Ministry.

"Army's proposal (for the new promotion policy) is being examined by the government. No deadline can be fixed for it. Till the time a decision is taken the existing two-stream policy would be followed," they said.

While the officers promoted under the Command and Staff stream are eligible to become Army Commanders, Staff stream refers to administrative duties within the Commands.

The two-stream promotion policy is being opposed on the grounds that it creates division at the upper ranks, leading to discontentment.

The selection board for promotion of present batch of Major Generals to Lt Generals was held in January this year.

The present two-stream promotion policy was introduced two years ago during the tenure of former Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor.