Aneri Ketan Shah asked: How many Indian defence personnel become disabled every year and what is the status of their rehabilitation?

D.P.K. Pillay replies: The exact number depends on multiple variables and cannot be listed as an annual statistic. The numbers vary according to the deployment and operational activities that vary from year to year. However, it is a fact that while a large number of soldiers do get disabled in the line of duty due to operational injuries (called War Disabled), they also get classified as disabled due to service conditions, incidents like accidents, diseases acquired due to peculiar service conditions and terrain not necessarily in operational areas (called Physical Casualties).

Medical specialists all over the world recognise higher stress and strain in uniformed forces. Therefore, any disability arising during service, except when caused due to illegality such as substance abuse, is deemed as having been affected by service conditions. Such personnel are classified as disabled. There is also a category called Neither Attributable, Nor Aggravated (NANA) by service conditions - these are due to diseases like diabetes or diseases that are not traceable to any service condition.

There are schemes under which compensation and rehabilitation is worked out by the Armed Forces as well as Ministry of Defence.

Posted on May 28, 2018