he Group of Ministers, post Kargil review, had elaborated four roles for CDS. All these have been incorporated in the charter, along with op control of tri-service entities like space and cyber. These would give the Chief of Defence Staff a modicum of control over the three services

Air Vice Marshal
Manmohan Bahadur (retd)

The word CDS — Chief of Defence Staff — raises passions of varied kind in any discussion, but now that the government has announced the appointment, the right thing would be to move ahead and make it work. Even though the terms and conditions, responsibilities and span of control of the CDS have been promulgated, they appear to be just the outline, with the fleshing out yet to be done.

The Group of Ministers, post the Kargil review, had elaborated four roles for the CDS. First, that he should be the principal military adviser to the Raksha Mantri. Second, to exercise administrative control over strategic forces; third, enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning and budgeting process through intra and inter-service prioritisation of acquisitions and lastly, ensure required jointness amongst the three services. A point to remember is that no operational control of the war fighters was envisaged for the CDS, with that mantle staying with the service chiefs. All these have been incorporated in the charter of the CDS, along with op control of tri-service entities like space and cyber that were not at the forefront when the Kargil review was done. These are all for the good and would give the CDS a modicum of control over the three services. There are, however, three issues that need looking into.

First, as expected, the CDS would be a four-star officer; what is a good surprise is that a new Department of Military Affairs (DMA) has been created. The CDS would offer military advice to the Raksha Mantri but would have no direct access to the Prime Minister unlike in the US, where Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the President, the Secretary of Defense and their National Security Council. This is an issue that needs looking into since matters military are in a league of their own in the governance of a country and the PM, after all, is the executive head of the nation.

Second, while transferring to the CDS various entities like the three services, Territorial Army, etc, which presently are with the Defence Secretary in the Department of Defence (DoD) vide the Transaction of Business Rules, the Coast Guard has been left out. Considering that coastal security is a vital task, the Coast Guard too should have been placed under the CDS to ensure seamless security of our long coastline and huge EEZ.

Third, the task of ‘procurement exclusive to defence services’ has been transferred to the CDS, but without capital acquisitions. This undercuts one of the most important charge of the CDS — equipping the three services in a timely manner to meet envisaged challenges.

So, as things stand, the CDS can only do inter se acquisition prioritisation “…based on the anticipated budget”. This leads to two inferences. The positive one is that it would give the CDS indirect control on how the three services would shape up to meet the anticipated challenges. The negative aspect is that the financial purse strings would remain with the Defence Secretary, who would control the acquisitions by virtue of the fact that he would still be the chief accountant of the MoD and that the DG Acquisitions would continue to be ‘under his command’. In a doctrinal sense, the absence of ‘ownership’ of the acquisition process would continue to plague the system and, just as at present, no one entity would be accountable for the capability-building process; this is a fatal kink. Just to give one example, can blame be pinned on anyone of why the IAF lost the Beyond Visual Range edge in air-to-air combat, seen on February 27 over Naushera this year — a fact spoken about by no less than the then Air Chief in the Military LitFest at Chandigarh recently?

If total ‘ownership’ of building capability (prioritisation and budget utilisation) devolves on the CDS, then he automatically comes firmly into the driver’s seat in the following manner. First, planning how the services, together, are going to address various contingencies and conflicts that may arise in future; so, the major sticking point, that of each service fighting its own war, is taken care of. Second, once jointly thought-through plans are drawn up, the capabilities, and hence the acquisitions required by each service get prioritised (under tutelage of the CDS) to execute the envisaged war tasks. Third, since service chiefs would still be the executors of the war plans, the core competencies of each service would be utilised optimally, with the CDS having a bird’s eye view enabling him to make the required changes in a joint manner; prioritisation and budgetary expenditure, thus, would fall in place. Sadly, as pointed out earlier, the two have been split, leaving no one entity having ‘ownership’ of the process.

Can all this be achieved without an overhaul of the higher defence organisation, which includes the Department of Defence, which is under the Defence Secretary? While the DMA under the CDS would have military and civilian personnel, there is no word in the notification on the inclusion of military specialists in the DoD; this goes against the basic grain of integration as the Defence Secretary would still have vital roles to perform in keeping the services fighting-fit. This would be possible only if the DoD has its own civilian cadre of defence specialists; this requirement of permanence to build specialisation applies equally to civilians who come into the DMA.

Inducting military expertise

The critical importance of specialisation in a technical service is amply visible in the Indian Railways where the Railway Board does not have a single bureaucrat and is staffed only with experts; ISRO and DRDO are also configured in a similar manner, as is the MEA (where there are only IFS officers). As author Anit Mukerjee, while discussing civil-military relations in his recent book The Absent Dialogue, puts it, “Appointment to a post does not make for instant expertise!” He adds that in the MoD, “there is Defence Wisdom Deficit”, alluding to the fact that an IAS officer from any other ministry, be it agriculture or power, road transport or social welfare, arrives one fine day and starts taking decisions on matters military. This does not happen in mature democracies; the civil servants in the UK MoD are permanently in the ministry while the US has a specialised Defence Acquisition Corps in which are posted personnel trained by their Defence Acquisition University. So, inducting military expertise is an imperative in the DoD if the combination of the two principal advisers, civilian and military, is to deliver the expected results. Their major task would be to ensure that the aspect of ‘capability’ that the services want, and ‘processes’ that the MoD insists on (rightly), are seamlessly dovetailed for timely execution of plans.

Capability building requires money, a lot of it. So, it is good that that the CDS would be a member of policy-making bodies like the Defence Planning Committee and the Executive Council of the Nuclear Command Authority. Hopefully, the capability accretion requirements of the services would get their due importance in terms of financial allocations in the tussles within the government in the guns versus butter debate.

The government has taken the first important step of going ahead and announcing the setting up of the CDS. It is imperative that all involved — civilians, uniformed personnel and politicians — avoid turf wars and keep an open mind, as many changes/additions would be required to fine-tune the implementation of the concept. All must put their shoulders to the wheel to make it succeed for the nation’s good.

— The writer is Additional Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi; views are personal

Army, IAF, Navy are set for a more streamlined system of reporting and decision-making with approval of the post of Chief of Defence Staff. The CDS has got a 3-year timeline to bring about ‘jointness’ in operation, logistics, training. Since salaries and pensions can’t be cut, another key task is optimal utilisation of budget and infrastructure

Ajay Banerjee in New Delhi

For years, the Indian armed forces have been conducting ‘joint exercises’, but all the while the three services — Army, Air Force and the Navy — never got ‘integrated’ to have commonality of logistics, operations, maintenance, transport, training, support services or even communication networks.

Over the past few decades, the Army, IAF and Navy have grown as three separate verticals with sparse ‘horizontal links’. With no commonality, each service had its own wings doing the same things separately on communication, maintenance, logistics, operations, support services, etc, ‘wasting’ crores of rupees annually in manpower and literal triplication of effort. This is unlike the way other modern-day armed forces have evolved in the past five decades or so.

Newly minted contours for the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), announced by the Narendra Modi government, set a timeline on sorting out some vital issues that are ‘holding back’ integration and jointness of forces.

The directive is ‘transformational’ in nature that looks to alter structures not in tune with modern times where technology is playing a bigger role. The forces now need to live up to the political will and ‘integrate’ with each other.

Modern-day forces like the US or China have integrated theatre or joint commands. It ensures that all resources of the air, land and naval forces are placed under the command of a single person assigned to a geographical area demarcated on military and strategic needs.

China has a total of five commands, while India, despite having lesser number of force and lesser territory, has 19 collectively across the three services.

The time-bound three years

This is actually the nuts and bolts of the order. The CDS has been given a three-year timeline to bring about jointness in operations, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance.

The government is clear, it wants the CDS to facilitate “restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/theatre commands”.

Vice Admiral Sekhar Sinha (retd), a former Chief of the Navy’s Western Command, brings out a suggestion: “Right now one doable change is to have cross-appointment of Brigadier and Major General-level officials in the three services. Post them across services in operational divisions.” Tweak the policy to make a ‘Joint Service Operational appointment’ mandatory. CDS is the first step, theatre commands are a distance away, he adds.

Old system cannot continue

One of the key roles of the CDS, as per the order, is “promoting jointness in procurement, training and staffing for the services through joint planning and integration of their requirements”.

Lt Gen KJ Singh (retd), a former Western Army commander, says the appointment of CDS is a welcome step but has a caveat. “Military runs on command, the CDS would have no operational command over the forces.”

He suggests: “Let us have a pilot project to have one joint command in the eastern front. We have had an example of the joint command at Andaman and Nicobar Islands. After the CDS, let’s have one more, learn from lessons, and iron out the issues.”

Air Vice Marshal, SJ Nanodkar (retd) says “theatre commands appear inevitable but with the present force structure, it is an overkill”. In his opinion, a re-alignment of the boundaries of commands of all the three services is needed to bring about geographical convergence. “A theatre command would need huge restructuring in the services and support organisations,” he points out.

Onus is on CDS now

At present, the services are literally weighed down by bulging ‘establishment’ costs — a euphemism for salaries and pensions. The salaries and pensions of the three services and the civilians work out to be Rs 2,31,700 crore for the fiscal ending March 31, 2020 and now form 53.7 per cent of the Rs 4,31,011-crore budget. In other words, salaries and pensions take up much more share than the Rs 1,08,248 crore allocated this fiscal for new equipment and running expenses.

Salaries and pensions cannot be reduced, but optimal utilisation of budget and infrastructure is the target. The government has tasked the CDS with ensuring “optimal utilisation of infrastructure and rationalise it through jointness among the services”.

The CDS has been tasked to evaluate out-of-area plans, enhancing use of indigenous equipment and prioritising the weapons and equipment procurement of each service as per the available budget.

This would mean the budget will be told to the forces and the CDS, a military man, will assign funds, said a senior functionary, adding that the era of blaming all ills on the ‘babus’ or the politician are over.

Though the CDS would have no operational control over the services, the newly-created tri-services divisions on cyber and space will be under the CDS, who will be part of the Defence Acquisition Council and Defence Planning Committee.

Cutting the flab

During the late 1990s, the then Army Chief Gen VP Malik decided to suppress 50,000 manpower (mostly from non-field force) over a period of three years, provided the money saved would be given to the Army for capital purchases.

PM Narendra Modi in 2015 stressed how “modernisation and expansion of forces at the same time is a difficult goal”.

Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar set up a committee headed by Lt Gen DB Shekatkar (retd), which suggested 99 points for structural changes in the Army — cutting down flab and reducing revenue expenditure. The Ministry of Defence in 2017 accepted 65.

The armed forces have absorbed a fair amount of technological developments to rightsize the forces. For now, the path is clear, new equipment does not mean a corresponding rise in personnel strength.

Revisiting the idea of chief of defence staff

• Kargil review panel spoke about the need to have a CDS
• Matters meandered along as services got bogged down in turf wars as the 13-lakh strong Army looked the dominant force to the other two, which are each less than 1.5 lakh in numbers
• PM Modi, in 2015, said: “Major powers are reducing forces, relying more on technology, we are seeking to expand the size. Modernisation and expansion of forces at the same time is an unnecessary goal”
• Defence Minister Parrikar set up Lt Gen Shekatkar panel. It listed 99 points for structural changes in Army — cutting flab and reducing revenue (maintenance) expenditure
• It suggested how to enhance combat potential of forces, re-balance expenses. It listed steps to trim, redeploy, integrate manpower
• Expenses ‘could be cut by Rs 25,000 cr over 5 yrs’. MoD in 2017 accepted 65 of 99 suggestions

Agreed upon by mod

• Cutting expenses, as suggested by the panel and agreed upon by the Ministry of Defence, included the reorganisation of signals, engineering corps and ordnance
• Monitoring companies, including merger of engineering units and signals units
• Army postal establishments in peace stations were shut down
• All 39 military farms were also shut down

Big-ticket buys out of the ambit

The Department of Military Affairs (DMA), which will be headed by the Chief of Defence Staff, will do procurement exclusive to the services. However, capital acquisitions, or big-ticket equipment and weapons procured from foreign and Indian sources, would not be under its domain.

All big ticket acquisitions will continue to be under the Department of Defence, headed by the Defence Minister. The Defence Secretary, an IAS officer, is the administrative head. This way, the government has kept the price negotiation process done for such weapon deals under the civil bureaucracy and not with the DMA, headed by the CDS, a uniformed military man.

The Director General Acquisition would function under the Department of Defence, not the DMA. The DG is the key person to coordinate with foreign and Indian entities. Also, there is no change to Government of India Rules of Business Allocation 1961, which vested the authority for Defence of India with the Defence Secretary.

— Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, December 29

The Defence Ministry has amended rules to allow the Chief of Defence Staff to serve up to a maximum age limit of 65 years.

The changes have been made in the services rules of the Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force for extension of retirement age of the Chief of Defence Staff to a maximum of 65 years if a service chief is appointed to the post.

However, the tenure of the CDS is yet to be announced.

In a landmark decision, the Cabinet Committee on Security on Tuesday approved the creation of the CDS who will act as the principal military adviser to the defence minister on all matters relating to tri-services.

According to existing rules, the service chiefs can serve for a maximum period of three years or till attaining the age of 62, whichever is earlier.

The CDS will not be eligible to hold any government post after demitting office.

The CDS will not be allowed to take up any private employment without prior approval for a period of five years after demitting the office, officials said.

Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat is tipped to be India’s first CDS and the announcement is likely to be made by Tuesday.

A key mandate of the CDS will be to facilitate restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/theatre commands.

Officials said bringing about jointness in operation, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance of the three services within three years will be another major mandate of the CDS.

The tri-service agencies, organisations and commands relating to cyber and space will be under the command of the CDS and he will also function as the Military Adviser to the Nuclear Command Authority.

A pre-scheduled ceremony to hand over the baton of the Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee by outgoing Army Chief Gen Rawat to Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh was cancelled on Friday.

The ceremony to hand over the baton of chairman of COSC was scheduled as Gen Rawat is due for retirement from service on December 31.

The Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) comprises chiefs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and the senior-most member is appointed its chairperson.

There was indication that the ceremony has been cancelled as the government is likely to appoint the CDS by Tuesday. The CDS will also act as the permanent chairman of the CoSC.

Gen. Rawat assumed charge as Chief of Army Staff on December 31, 2016. Before becoming Army Chief, he handled various operational responsibilities in many areas, including along the LoC with Pakistan, the LAC with China and in the Northeast. — PTI

New Delhi, December 29

The Delhi Police has filed an FIR against a private company, on a complaint by the Defence Ministry, for allegedly not returning a database containing personal information of 45 lakh ex-servicemen after it completed a contract for ECHS smart cards, officials said.

The case was unearthed in RTI applications and subsequent follow ups filed by activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd).

He was recently informed by a Defence Ministry official through an email—a copy of which is with PTI—that the Delhi Police registered the FIR on December 19 against a private vendor who allegedly did not handover the personal data of the 45 lakh ex-servicemen enrolled in the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS).

Batra had sent an RTI query seeking file notings about the issue.

The notings received in response to the RTI application show that “in the absence of any written confirmation in form of ‘Confidentiality Certificate’ from the firm, the security of the database of ECHS beneficiaries cannot be confirmed.”

The ministry has alleged that Score Information Technology (SITL) was given a five-year contract in 2010 for the development of smart cards for ECHS but after the expiry of contract in 2015, the company did not return the database, source code, keys and computer applications, the file notings show.

The ministry claimed that neither did the STIL return the personal database, nor did it confirm that they are not holding it and also alleged that the company has also not returned source codes and key, necessary to make changes in the database, it says.

The company, in response to a legal notice from the ministry, has strongly denied the allegations, saying the data has been returned, the notings show.

After accessing file notings and detailed communication exchanged at various levels on the issue, Batra, a navy veteran, asked the Defence Ministry to explain the action taken against the company.

“With reference to your email referred to above in the subject line, you are informed that FIR has been lodged against M/s Score Information Technologies Private Limited and its directors and employees by Central Organisation, ECHS on December 19, 2019 at Police Station, Sadar Bazar, Delhi Cantonment,” Under Secretary AK Karn in Department of Ex Servicemen Welfare told him.

The officials have noted in files that data which have been handed over to Central Organisation, ECHS, responsible for implementation of the scheme, vide the certificate dated November 5, 2015 comprises only front-end software and source code of MIS module. However, the source codes and keys required for making changes in the database have not been handed over to this office, it shows.

“…Regarding the confidentiality of the data the firm has committed to abide by the provisions of the agreement which does not mention about the confidentiality certificate, however, in the absence of any written confirmation in the form of ‘Confidentiality Certificate’ from the firm the security of the database of ECHS beneficiaries cannot be confirmed,” a Colonel ranked officer noted.

The company had said that the transactions on the smart cards only took place at respective parent polyclinic and accordingly, the said transactional database is available at respective polyclinic, the notings show.

All transactions from authentication, key loading, fingerprint acquisition, etc were done locally by central organisation, ECHS, it said.

“In the premises, the question of possession of above does not arise by our client. Further Database as generated upto June 30, 2015 was duly handed over in CD which was acknowledged by your client (Central Organisation, ECHS) on July 6, 2019,” the company said in response to the notice.

In December 2002, the government had sanctioned ECHS healthcare scheme to cater for medical care of all ex-servicemen (ESM) in receipt of pension, including disability and family pensioners and dependents.

An agreement was signed between the MD ECHS and M/s Score Information Technologies Limited (SITL) in  January 2004 to develop smart cards for an amount of Rs 89.99 per card, valid for a period of five years, which was later extended by one more year, Comptroller and Auditor General had noted in its 2015 report.

It said renewal of agreement, which was to be done at the same cost, was however carried out in 2010 at an enhanced cost of Rs 135 per card against the existing cost of Rs 89.99. —PTI

“The couple were returning home from a function and were in a cab. They stopped the vehicle on the road outside the enclave and were crossing it when the car hit them,” said police.

A 69-year-old retired group captain of the Indian Air Force and his 47-year-old wife died after a Volkswagen Polo allegedly rammed into them late Wednesday night in Dwarka. The couple, identified as Amardeep Singh Gill and Rajani Gill, were returning home to Air Force and Naval Officers Enclave in Dwarka Sector 7 and were just across the road when the car, which was allegedly speeding, hit them a little before midnight.

Police said the driver of the red Polo, allegedly a 20-year-old BBA student, fled after hitting the couple. “Yatin, a resident of Vikaspuri, was arrested Thursday, and the car too has been recovered. He has been booked under IPC sections 279 (rash driving) and 304A (causing death by negligence) at the Dwarka South police station,” said DCP (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse.

A police officer said, “Amardeep was declared dead on arrival at the hospital while Rajani succumbed during treatment on Friday morning.”

Amardeep has two sons settled in Canada and they have been informed about the deaths.

“The couple were returning home from a function and were in a cab. They stopped the vehicle on the road outside the enclave and were crossing it when the car hit them,” said police.

It was a passerby’s presence of mind to note down the number of the red Polo that helped police identify the driver. A police officer said, “When the registration number was checked, it was traced to an address in Netaji Subhash Place. When the police reached there, they found out that the owner had moved to Pitampura. At the next location, they were told that the car had been sold to a broker in 2014.”

Police then tracked down the broker, who informed police that he had sold the car to another person in Vikaspuri. Police arrested Yatin at this address and recovered the car.

“During questioning, he told police that he was dropping off a friend to Dwarka Sector 4, and that there were three people in the car. As they were busy talking, Yatin allegedly didn’t notice the couple crossing the road and hit them. He then panicked and sped away,” said a police officer.

New Delhi, December 27

In what hints that the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) will be appointed anytime soon, a pre-scheduled ceremony to appoint the chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) has been postponed by the Ministry of Defence. The CoSC comprises chiefs of the Army, Navy and the Air Force and the senior-most among them is appointed its chairman.

It is headed by Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat currently and the next man to take over would have been Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh. The ceremony was slated today, but with an announcement on December 24 detailing the charter of the CDS, the appointment of the new CoSC would be redundant. The CDS would be permanent chairman of the CoSC.

The ceremony to hand over the baton of the CoSC chairman was cancelled at the last minute on Friday, sources said, adding it could take place on December 31.

There was an indication that the ceremony was cancelled as the government was likely to appoint the country’s first CDS, thus General Rawat handing over the charge would have been pointless.

General Rawat is the frontrunner for the post of CDS, who will act as the principal military adviser to the Defence Minister on matters relating to the three services. General Rawat took charge as CoSC chairman from then IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa on September 27. — TNS