In a major reform to make the Army ready for fighting modern day warfare, the Government on Wednesday approved redeployment of 57,000 officers and jawans for combat role by restructuring some services. These changes were recommended by a committee headed by lt General DB Shekatkar (retired) to improve “teeth to tail ratio”. They will be completed by December 2019.
The approval for reforms was given in a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Wednesday.
This ratio stresses on enhancing operational capabilities in fast changing war fighting with stress on technology backed by a smaller support and administrative structure. In his report submitted to the Defence Ministry in December last year, Shekhawat had recommended 99 measures to cut down flab and reduce revenue (maintenance) expenditure so as to modernise the Armed Forces at a faster pace with additional funds at their disposal. At present, they are left with just 20 per cent of the overall all Defence budget to cater for capital acquisitions.
In May last year, the Ministry had constituted a committee of experts headed by Shekatkar to recommend measures for enhancing of Combat Capability & Rebalancing Defence Expenditure of the Armed Forces with an aim to increase “teeth to tail ratio.”
Announcing the decision after the Cabinet meeting, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said 65 out of 99 recommendations of the Shekatkar Committee were accepted by the Government. While 65 measures of the committee pertained to the Army, the remaining proposals focus on the Indian Air Force (IAF), Navy and Integrated Defence Staff (IDS). These recommendations were also likely to be okayed soon, officials said later.
Jaitley said perhaps for the first time after Independence, such a big and “far-reaching” reform process is being initiated in the Army.
Replying to a question that whether the exercise was undertaken keeping in view the Doklam episode, Jaitley said, “This is not specific to any incident. It had been going on much prior to Doklam.”
Apart from restructuring various services of the Army, including Signals, Workshop bases, Transport units and Ordnance depots, the Government also accepted the committee recommendation on improving the National Cadet Corps (NCC).
Officers of the three Services besides non-commissioned personnel are posted to the NCC and efforts will be now to recruit ex-servicemen to man it and free the serving personnel for active duty thereby add to operational capabilities of the armed forces.
Giving details of the structural changes, the Defence Ministry officials said the Government approved optimisation of Signals Establishments to include Radio Monitoring Companies, Corps Air Support Signal Regiments, Air Formation Signal Regiments, Composite Signal Regiments and merger of Corps Operating and Engineering Signal Regiments.
The other steps include restructuring of repair echelons in the Army to include Base Workshops, Advance Base Workshops and Static and Station Workshops in the field Army. Some of the works may be outsourced so as to save money on maintenance, sources said.
Changes in Ordnance echelons will include Vehicle Depots, Ordnance Depots and Central Ordnance Depots apart from streamlining inventory control mechanisms. Other wings covered in the reform drive include Supply and Transport echelons and Animal Transport units with focus on better utilisation of these resources.
As regards military farms, the process is already on to close them. At present, there are 39 such farms all over the country and 12 of them have already shut down. These farms were set up during British rule in the cantonments located far outside towns with the aim to provide basic necessities to people living inside these establishments.
Similarly, the Government has decided to close Army postal establishments in peace locations as mean of communications have improved thereby allowing the troops to remain in touch with their families.
With the deadline of December 31, 2019 to complete the reform process, officials said restructuring is aimed at enhancing combat capability in a manner that the 57,000 personnel will be used for improving operational preparedness and civilians will be redeployed in different wings of the Armed Forces for improving efficiency.