NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has approved a proposed law to empower military commanders of tri-service organisations with administrative and disciplinary powers. The InterServices Organisations (Command, Control & Discipline) Bill, 2023, aims to create unified theatre commands for an integrated warfighting machinery. The bill has been recommended to be passed without amendments and enacted as a statute.
The enactment of the bill will lead to greater integration and jointmanship in inter-services organisations and establishments. India currently has 17 singleservice commands, which will be consolidated under the new theatre commands.
According to government sources, the Department of Military Affairs has already started working towards creating a culture of integration among the forces for which many steps have been taken and many are in the pipeline.
Among the steps are the decision to have cross posting of personnel in other services, holding of joint exercises and joint staffing in organisations, senior government officials said.
The forces will soon see the three services chiefs having personal staff from other services to help them carry out their daily tasks, they said. Many other steps have been taken like bringing personnel from all three services on par in terms of giving admissions in schools run by respective services.
The officials said over the years, the services had developed infrastructure and systems for their service-specific requirements only but now this culture of integration has to be created as the country moves towards creating theatre commands which will have personnel from all three services fighting the wars of the future jointly.
The forces have also decided that all the major future exercises will be held jointly with participation from all three services.
The acquisition procedure for the Predator drones from the US was also done in a joint way by the forces with tri-services Integrated Defence Staff handling the case and deciding on the numbers to be acquired for the surveillance of the entire country.
Officials said the DMA and the three services would be taking many more such steps to achieve the desired level of jointness among the forces
