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Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai candidly admitted on Friday that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) facing an "acute shortage" of personnel and plans to induct 500 officers in the next few years to meet its requirements. Speaking with media after releasing a book titled 'India's Neighbourhood Challenges in the Next Two Decades', here today, Mathai said that with India's international engagements rapidly expanding, the MEA was of the considered view that more personnel were required to manage the ever-increasing workload of the ministry. "We have been hearing repeatedly about how small the ministry is and how we are unable to cope with challenges of our time due to shortage of resources. I would like to say that we have not let the acute shortage of resources, which is a reality, stop entirely the efforts to be proactive," Mathai said at an IDSA book release function. "We have created bureaus to deal with emerging issues. We have stepped up recruitment of personnel in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). We have increased intake of people from other services and backgrounds to build in-house expertise in non-traditional areas," he added. Asked about the extent of shortages, Mathai said, "We have not carried out any study to assess the shortage, but we will be inducting 500 personnel in next few years to meet our requirements." Mathai also said the visa regimes and consular issues continue to remain a "major challenge" for the ministry, but efforts are on to address these issues.

MEA to induct 500 new officers to counter manpower shortage