NEW DELHI – Indian government is moving towards integrating theatrecommands of the Indian Military on the pattern of the US Military.
Indian Military Andaman and Nicobar Command will make a presentation to thedefence ministry on further strengthening the tri-services organisation,India Today has reported.
The move comes soon after the defence ministry put in all the manpowerincluding officers of the Air Force, Army and Navy under the operationalcommand of a Vice Admiral of the Navy at the Andaman and Nicobar Command inPort Blair.
“Detailed presentations would be made by the Commander in Chief, Andamanand Nicobar Command (CiNCAN) to the Defence Ministry on Thursday and Fridaythis week on further strengthening the command and its infrastructure togive it more teeth,” government sources told Mail Today here.
“The presentation is likely to include the assets of the Air Force and theArmy to be placed under the command to give it more fighting capability andfirepower,” the sources said.
Under theatre commands like the ones which exist in the US, all the forcesworking in a geographical area are put under a theatre command which can beheaded by one officer from any of the three services.
Recently, the defence ministry had notified new “statutory rules andorders” to ensure an officer from any one service can now “exercise directcommand” over personnel from the other two services, who are all governedby different acts and rules, in tri-service.
The move has been implemented especially for the strategically locatedAndaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), which was established aslink>link>Indialink> ‘s first theatre command inOctober 2001 but has largely failed to achieve its potential due tointernecine turf wars among the three services, generalpolitico-bureaucratic apathy, fund crunches and environmental concerns.
After the amendment in rules, the naval commander-in-chief of the ANC cannow directly control and discipline Army and IAF officers and otherpersonnel under him, even as similar moves are afoot to eventually bringall land and assets under him.
However, sources suggest that there are certain issues among the threeservices over giving powers to the tri-services command to punish officersfrom all the three services.
There is also a view that services are not on the same page of the issue oftheatre commands over its utility. Defence experts fee the recent Air Forcewargame Exercise Gaganshakti showcased that its assets can shift from onetheatre to the other within no time and putting them under a dedicatedtheatre would not be of much us ina country with limited resources.
After the government took over in 2014, there was talk about a proposal tocreate integrated theatre commands for the northern border with China, awestern command for Pakistan, a counterinsurgency operations command andone command for the maritime borders. But nothing concrete has come out ofit.
The armed forces currently have 17 single-service commands, with only twounified commands in ANC and the Strategic Forces Command to handle thecountry’s nuclear arsenal.