Defence Minister Arun Jaitley. ANI file
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 30
The Centre on Wednesday announced a major change in the Army. As many as 57,000 officers and soldiers will be redeployed to have more combat-oriented roles. This is part of restructuring of some British-era prevailing systems.Defence Minister Arun Jaitley announced the “far-reaching changes” here. Jaitley said a committee headed by Lt Gen DB Shekatkar (retd) had suggested 99 points for structural changes in the Army–cutting down flab and reducing revenue (maintenance) expenditure.Of these, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Tuesday accepted 65 suggestions, Jaitley said.The restructuring will be done in phases till 2019.The major changes will be in reorganisation of signals, engineering corps and ordnance. This will include monitoring companies, including merger of engineering units and signals units. Army postal establishments in peace will be shut down. All 39 military farms will be shut down. Of these 12 had been closed before August 15.
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The Committee was set up in May last year by then defence minister Manohar Parrikar.The MoD says the addition of new equipment (modernisation) does not mean a corresponding rise in the personnel strength.The MoD had ordered the restructuring as the ever-increasing revenue expenditure on manpower leaves less than 20 per cent of the defence budget for weapons and equipment modernisation.Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address at the Combined Commanders’ Conference in December 2015, had laid the foundation for this saying, “At a time when major powers are reducing their forces and relying more on technology, we are still constantly seeking to expand the size of our forces. Modernisation and expansion of forces at the same time is a difficult and unnecessary goal.”The military commanders have been asked to promote ‘jointness’ among the three services across every level, shorten the tooth-to-tail ratio, and re-examine assumptions that keep massive funds locked up in inventories.During 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.DB Shekatkar, then a Major-General heading the Perspective Planning Directorate, worked on details in consultation with the heads of arms and services, principal staff officers and army commanders. There was considerable opposition within the army and outside. It was down for two years and in the third year the Kargil skirmish happened.The Indian army is the third largest in the world with over 38,000 officers (sanctioned strength is 49,631) and 11.38 lakh soldiers. Cadre reviews and implementation of the Ajai Vikram Singh report has made it top-heavy with bloated headquarters. This is definitely not in line with modern defence management to win short and swift wars.Over the last decade, India’s armed forces have absorbed a fair amount of technological developments, including communications and digitisation.