Indian Army to recruit domain experts in niche technology areas

New Delhi: With technology shaping the nature of conflict, the Indian Army is all set to recruit “domain experts” as officers and junior commissioned officers in the force to look after niche areas that the forces are keen to adopt to have an edge over the enemy, a top official said here on Friday.

This comes close on the heels of the army opening up 16 technology clusters in areas as diversified as space and laser weapons to IOT (internet of things), 3D printing and robotics.

“We are reorienting and restructuring the organisation to move ahead with time and will be recruiting domain experts. “The first batch may be recruited by the middle of 2025 for which the advertisement is likely to be issued in a month,” Lt Gen Rakesh Kapoor, Deputy Chief of the Army Staff said.

Those with a master’s degree will be recruited in the rank of officers while the graduates will be taken either as JCOs or ORs (other ranks).

Clusters have opened in areas like cyber warfare, quantum technologies; 5G/ 6G communication technologies; augmented reality/virtual reality; artificial intelligence and machine learning, remotely piloted aircraft; counter drone technology, block chain and loitering munitions among others.

The officers heading these clusters have been given specific benchmarks or roadmaps to achieve.

The domain experts will work in an area assigned to him/her throughout the career, but will have the opportunity to be promoted in higher ranks in the same discipline.

“They will work in some of these new tech clusters,” said Lt Gen Kapoor, who is in-charge of signals, communications and information systems in the army.

Sources in the armed forces note that absorption of nice technologies and developing a home-grown supply chain for such technologies are two big lessons from the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts. “We need to catch up on non-combat, non-kinetic type of warfare,” said an officer.

Earlier the army had hired experts in the areas of linguistics and cyber warfare through the Territorial Army route which allows recruitment opportunities up to 42 years for deserving candidates. Now direct recruitment routes are being opened because of a higher need for a large number of specialists.

In recent years, the armed forces have embraced cutting edge technologies in a big way after witnessing their benefits.

While many new products have been purchased on emergency basis during the four-year long tense stand-off with China on the Line of Actual Control, the aim is now to go beyond such emergency measures and develop the technologies in house.

The Indian Army has signed agreements with some of the IITs to encourage development and absorption of niche technologies. The military is also a part of the National Quantum Mission.