Defence Services, India: Tri-service agencies
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Integrated commands
2024: Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Act
Rajat Pandit, May 11, 2024: The Times of India
New Delhi: Govt has finally notified the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Act, which will also pave the way for creation of the long-pending unified theatre commands in the most radical military reorganisation envisaged since Independence.
The enforcement with immediate effect of the ISO Act, which received Presidential assent on Aug15 last year after the bill was passed by Parliament during the monsoon session, comes after the BJP manifesto last month promised its govt will “establish military theatre commands for more efficient operations” after creating the chief of defence staff (CDS) post in Dec 2019.
Parallelly, CDS General Anil Chauhan chaired a “Parivartan Chintan” here on Thursday-Friday, during which 12 sub-committees made presentations on different domains and aspects towards jointness and integration “in light of the imminent the a terisation”, officials said.
The flurry of activity shows the stage is now being set for the creation of integrated theatre commands (ITCs), which stalled after the first CDS Gen Bipin Rawat’s death in a helicopter crash in Dec 2021, amid festering inter-service turf wars.
India certainly needs a cost-effective war-fighting machinery through ITCs instead of the existing 17 single-service commands (Army 7, IAF 7 and Navy 3), which have little synergy in planning, logistics and operations, and often pull in different directions. The ISO Act empowers military commanders of existing tri-service organisations with full administrative and disci- plinary powers over Army, Navy and IAF personnel serving under them, “without disturbing the unique service conditions of each individual service”. Till now, military personnel were governed by their own service acts like the Air Force Act, 1950, the Army Act, 1950, and the Navy Act, 1957.
The ISO Act will also allow the requisite command and control of the proposed ITCs. As per the existing plan, there will be two “adversary-specific” ITCs — one for the northern borders with China at Lucknow and the other for the western front with Pakistan at Jaipur. The Maritime Theatre Command at Karwar in coastal Karnataka, in turn, will be for the Indian Ocean Region as well as the larger Indo-Pacific.
MoD on Friday said, “The Act will empower the heads of ISOs and pave the way for expeditious disposal of cases, avoid multiple proceedings and will be a step towards greater integration and jointness among armed forces personnel.”
India currently has only two unified commands, the geographical Andaman and Nicobar Command and the functional Strategic Forces Command to handle the country’s nuclear arsenal, which were set up in 2001 and 2003 after the Kargil conflict with Pakistan.
China, incidentally, re-organised its 2-million strong People’s Liberation Army into five theatre commands in early2016 to boost offensive capabilities and establish better command-and-control structures. Its Western Theatre Command, for instance, handles the entire 3,488-km Line of Actual Control. India, in contrast, has four Army and three IAF commands for the northern borders with China.
Special Operations; Cyber Agency; Space Agency
2019: A beginning
May 16, 2019: The Times of India
Agencies take shape for spl ops, space, cyber war
New Delhi:
The three triservice agencies to handle the critical modern warfare domains of special operations, cyberspace and space are taking shape, with twostar officers being appointed to head them.
Maj Gen A K Dhingra, from the 1 Para-Special Forces unit, will be the first commander of the Special Operations Division, while Rear Admiral Mohit Gupta will head the new Defence Cyber Agency. Air Vice Marshal S P Dharkar will head the Defence Space Agency, though his name has not been officially announced yet.
These three agencies, which will become fully operational by October-November, are truncated versions of the original proposal to have full-fledged commands under three-star officers to handle challenges in space, cyberspace and clandestine warfare, as was first reported by TOI.
‘SMALL BEGINNING’
‘New agencies to inject synergy in armed forces’
The Special Operations Division, for instance, will have just a small number of commandos under it, while the three services will retain the bulk of their special forces. The Army, for instance, has nine Para-Special Forces and five Para (airborne) battalions (each has 620 soldiers), while the Navy has 1,200 Marcos (marine commandos) and IAF 1,000 Garud commandos.
“The three new agencies are a small beginning to inject jointness and synergy among the Army, Navy and IAF. In the future, they can grow into full-fledged commands,” said an official.
The Paras, Marcos and Garuds have inducted highly specialised equipment, ranging from new longrange sniper rifles and man-portable anti-tank weapons systems to highspeed underwater scooters and hand-launched micro drones, over the years.
But they still work in separate silos. Several committees, including the Naresh Chandra Taskforce in May 2012, have strongly recommended that the disparate special forces of the armed forces and other agencies should be brought under a unified command and control structure to execute strategic operations in tune with national security objectives.
The Defence Space Agency will basically merge the existing Defence Imagery Processing and Analysis Centre in Delhi and the Defence Satellite Control Centre in Bhopal while the existing Defence Information Assurance and Research Agency is being upgraded to the Defence Cyber Agency.
India has only two unified commands till now. The first was the Andaman and Nicobar Command, established as a theatre command in 2001. The Strategic Forces Command, in turn, was created in 2003 to handle the country’s nuclear arsenal. But there are 17 single-service commands (Army 7, IAF 7 and Navy 3), which many believe are a waste of resources and infrastructure.
