Army to integrate aerial, naval, logistics operations in 3 years

New Delhi: In one of the biggest military restructuring efforts, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat said on Tuesday that in three years India is likely to have an  air defence command to cover all aerial operations in the Indian airspace, a peninsula command for all naval operations in the Indian Ocean region, and a logistics command.

“In order to become the armed forces of the Union, we need to start working on some of the aspects where we think immediate integration can happen. There, we find that air defence is one area, which according to me, is a low hanging fruit and can happen in a time-bound manner,” said the CDS.

He said that the responsibility of the management of airspace is that of the Air Force, therefore, the security and safety of the airspace must rest with that service. “We feel that all the assets which are there must integrate under one service so that command and control issues can be simplified,” said Gen. Rawat.

Gen. Rawat said that there should be an integrated logistics command. “There is a great scope of logistics issues being integrated,” he said. There is a need for a peninsula command, which would be with the Navy. “Our idea is that let us go with the peninsula command. Currently, there are the Eastern and Western Commands in the Navy over the Indian Ocean,” Gen. Rawat said.

“If you look at the Navy Chief, these two commands are just one of his charters. Look at his charter, he is looking at the entire Indian Ocean region. He is looking from the east coast of Africa to right down to Australia. So, he has got a bigger picture to look at,” Gen. Rawat said.  

Therefore, with the creation of the peninsula command, the Navy Chief can disinvest himself from the closer Indian Ocean region and look at the bigger picture.

Gen. Rawat said that commanders of such theatres would be reporting to their respective service chiefs initially and no decision has been taken on how many joint commands would be created on the Indo-China border.  

“Once we are done with our cross staffing, initially the theatre commanders will have to be assigned with the regular theatre with the chiefs taking over,” Gen. Rawat told reporters.

Asked about the time-frame he has in mind to create these theatre commands, the CDS said, “I have been given three years for creation of these theatres.”