Common ACRs of 2 & 3 star senior officers in armed forces

To roll out theaterisation, Armed Forces have decided to have a common Annual Confidential Report (ACR) for their senior officers besides agreeing to cross-services postings, both aimed at bringing synergy in the HR ecosystem.

“Over a period of time, employment of officers in tri-services organisations and environment will only increase as the armed forces progress towards joint structures and organisations. As a result of this, a need was felt to ‘synergise the appraisal system for undertaking the tasks in tri-services appointments’ which have been identified in the Armed Forces,” said sources in the defence establishment.

To being with, a Common Confidential Report (CR) for two and three-star officers of armed forces has been approved for implementation, informed sources. The Army, Air Force and Navy will assist for implementing the decision in approximately three to four months. For Army, two star officer is Major General and three star officer is Lt General. Similar ranks in Air Force is of Air Vice Marshal and Air Marshal, respectively. Finally, in Navy, it’s Rear Admiral and Vice Admiral respectively.

In Army alone, there would be 400 to 425 Major General and Lt General officers but the number of equivalent rank officers gets reduced significantly in Air Force and Navy due to their individual overall strength.

This reform will prove instrumental in path towards “achieving commonality in procedures, assessments” and lead to “better outcomes”, thereby contributing to jointness and integration. Sources stated that the parameters for assessment of performance of officers right now differ from service to service. Those parameters will be common in ACRs, explained sources.

As things progress, even the reviewing officers would no longer be from the same service, a drift from the present HR practise, given that cross-services postings too have been approved, which allowed movement of officers in a theatre that would be populated from all the three services of Army, Air Force and Navy.

Presently, for posting in combined or tri services appointments, the selection system is based on parent service-specific parameters. Recent cross-services postings of a large number of officers was one such step, sources elaborated.

An officer of a particular rank is assessed on a set of qualities, that has some commonality but gets altered with promotion to higher levels. This step will lead to “better identification and selection of officers for tri-services appointments” in the Command, Staff or Instructional channels, based on their suitability, sources explained.

Common appraisal to some extent is already happening in Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), the only tri-service theatre command of the Indian armed forces at Port Blair, and Strategic Forces Command, sources pointed.  

These steps have been undertaken in various domains to bring in jointness and integration.