New Delhi, Dec 19: India has trained nearly 13,000 foreign defence personnel at various training academies of the armed forces in the country since 2012 and has spent Rs 595 crore on the programme, the government said on Friday.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said in the Lok Sabha that 432 Indian defence personnel have been trained abroad during the same period.
In 2012-13, 3,286 foreign defence personnel were given training in India and this number increased to 3,513 in 2013-14. It was 3,532 in 2014-15 and the figure for the current financial year stands at 2,589, he said.
The training institutes of the armed forces, include National Defence Academy, Indian Military Academy, National Defence College among others.
In reply to another question he said over 6,600 posts reserved for SC/STs are lying vacant in the defence sector.
There are 3,430 Schedule Caste backlog vacancy in the defence establishment and 3,182 Schedule Tribe posts in the defence establishment, he said.
The maximum vacancy was in the Department of Defence Production with 2,572 posts lying unoccupied (as of April 28, 2015). It was followed by the Navy (defence civilians) with 1,971 cases, he said.
Parrikar said that the defence establishments have been instructed to put up their backlog vacancies of SC/ST on their respective websites.
De-reservation of SC vacancies is being discouraged and concerned defence establishments are advised to avoid de-reservation of SC/ST vacancies in accordance with the guidelines and provisions of DoPT.
