Islamabad, Dec 1 (IANS) The Pakistan Army has changed its recruitment pattern and is now attempting to strike an ethnic balance by encouraging an intake of ethnic minorities, a media report said Wednesday.
The army has begun to decrease the number of Punjabis and Pashtuns in fresh recruitments and initiated the policy of encouraging Baloch, Sindhis and other ethnic minorities for an ethnic balance, the News International reported.
The army has a total of 480,000 soldiers, of whom the percentage of Punjabis is 55.82 percent, Pakhtuns 15.42 percent, Baloch 2.34 percent, Sindhis 15.09 percent and people from Pakistan administer Kashmir/Gilgit-Baltistan are 8.48 percent.
The number of non-Muslims in the army is barely 0.43 percent.
The new target is to reduce the number of Punjabis to 54.50 percent, number of Pashtuns will come down to 14.50 percent while the number of Baloch will increase to 4 percent, Sindhis will increase to 17 per cent and recruits from Pakistan administered Kashmi/Gilgit-Baltistan will increase to 9 percent by the year 2011, the media report said.
The number of non-Muslims will also increase to 1 percent by the next year.
Defence experts said that Pakistan was spending $7,818 annually on one army soldier while India was spending $27,171 on each soldier.
Right now, over 147,000 troops are deployed at the country’s western borders, including tribal areas, 100,000 troops are guarding border with India, 10,000 troops are busy in the UN duties outside Pakistan, and 16,000 troops are busy in training while only 62,600 troops are enjoying rest in cantonments.
The media report said that the defence budget was declining. It was 19 percent of the GDP in 2006-07 but it is 16 percent of the GDP in the financial year of 2010-11.
The army is getting 46.83 per cent of the total defence budget while the rest was going to the air force, navy and the Ministry of Defence. The total defence budget was $3.9 billion in 2003-04 but this year only $2.7 billion were allocated for defence spending.
The media report said that though Pakistan received over $10 billion from the US between 2002 and 2008, the Pakistan Army received only $1.6 billion.
