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Drab condition of Army recruitment office no draw for new recruits
The recruitment drive launched by the Sri Lanka Army has yet to reach the desired target of 4000 recruits.

Top military sources confirmed that though almost 25 days had passed since the commencement of the month long islandwide recruitment drive that began on the 18th of last month even by Friday only about 2500 had turned up for the interviews.

Of this only 1900 were successful at the 1st interview which in itself was less than half the expected number of 4000 recruits. Sources said that once medical and other requirements are completed there was a possibility that this figure dropping to about 1600.

Military sources say servicemen presently serving in the forces rarely or never encourage any family member to join the forces as they feel they are entitled to a better remuneration and better facilities considering the hardships and risks they necessarily have to undergo.

These sources say that if the government at least now could implement the discussed pay hikes soon they would be in a position to attract more quality recruits to the army.

"We should really go for quality rather than quantity at a recruitment drive and do our best to satisfy the requirements of soldiers and provide them with proper facilities so that they will encourage others to join the forces. The government should allocate more funds for this purpose", an officer involved in recruitment said.

Meanwhile some buildings of a main army recruitment office in Colombo and other military establishments surrounding it are in a dilapidated condition. These building situated in Slave Island are on the verge of collapse compelling the authorities to close down some of these buildings.

For a number of years now the boundary walls surrounding these buildings have notices informing people to keep away as the walls are badly cracked and on the verge of collapse.

One may even tend to think that the notices could be an unusual security measure used to keep away all and sundry from approaching the buildings. While what should be urgently done is to construct a new wall if it is about to collapse instead of putting up notices.

'However this kind of recruiting office and surroundings is not going to project a positive image on encourage prospective recruit who walks in to join the army', an army officer said.

'Therefore it would be best if the relevant authorities take speedy action and allocate the required funds to renovate these century old buildings before they claim any lives in the future', he said.

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