Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday laid the foundation stone of the tri-services’ military headquarters, known as Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) building which will have the facility to house the three Services Chiefs in times of wars in future.
IDS was set up in 2001 following recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee report which favoured a joint Services command centre to synergise military operations for future wars. So far, IDS was working from six different locations in New Delhi thereby posing logistical problems.
The building expected to be ready in two years will overcome all these issues and provide single-point review of operations.
Speaking on the occasion after laying the foundation stone, Jaitley said, since its inception, IDS has played a pivotal role in building synergy and consensus through intra-service deliberations and ensuring optimisation of resources through rightful prioritisation for procurements, joint doctrines, joint training and common procedures.
He said in future almost all operations, be they inland or overseas, are invariably going to be Tri-Service operations and developing synergy between the services to achieve optimum force application therefore attains utmost importance.
Army Chief General Bikram Singh said while preparing the blueprint of the building, the planners will develop capability to fight future wars from this building and special facility for the Chiefs to conduct operations from there.
The multi-storied IDS building will come up over an area of 10.57 acres of land. The complex will consist of Office Building, Officers Mess Complex, Signal Intelligence (SI) Directorate and Centre for Joint Warfare Studies.
The ultra-modern green complex will have many novel features including library cum reading room, Information Technology and communication rooms and special section on international defence co-operation.