Article Posted on : - Oct 11, 2023

A PTI photo

NEW DELH (PTI): Around nine verticals including supply chain management, logistics and intelligence sharing were identified by the three services for ensuring an integrated approach laying the foundation for the ambitious theaterisation plan, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan has said.

In an interactive session at a defence conclave on Tuesday, Gen Chauhan said he was focusing on building consensus among the three services on key issues such as jointness that would pave the way for successful achieving the goal of theaterisation.

"We have been able to identify around nine verticals where we need to integrate together," he said at the conclave organised by defence and strategic affairs portal Bharatshakti.

The Chief of Defence Staff said operations logistics, intelligence, information flow, training, administration, supply chain management and maintenance are among the verticals identified by the three services.

Asked about his one-year tenure as the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Chauhan said the most important thing that he was able to achieve is "forging a kind of consensus on macro issues" among the chiefs of all the three services and myself on what kind of roadmap or transformation that we want to lay down for the armed forces."

"Along with that, we have been able to build some kind of spirit of bonhomie and camaraderie among the three services and remove whatever little mistrust existed among them," he said at the 'Catalyst and India Defence Conclave'.

Gen Chauhan said there is "good synergy right now among the three services to work together."

"There is no point creating joint structures where people are not ready to fight together. Consensus was important for me," he said.

"Obviously, consensus is not the best solution. So somewhere you have to compromise to take everyone along. But I think we will be able to get to a good solution," he said.

"It is a journey that just commenced and hopefully we will complete in a good manner," he said, in an apparent reference to the theaterisation plan.

According to the plan, each of the theatre commands will have units of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and all of them will work as a single entity looking after security challenges in a specified geographical territory.

At present, the Army, Navy and the Air Force have separate commands.

The theatre commands are being planned to integrate the capabilities of the three services and to ensure optimal utilisation of their resources.

Gen Chauhan said "jointness and integration" will lead to theaterisation.

"I can say that there is nothing adversely commented upon by anyone on this particular process. This is an achievement," he said.

Speaking at the conclave, Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande highlighted the efforts being undertaken by the Army in enhancing the force's combat prowess. He also said that the Army is improving its "jointness and integration with our sister services and other agencies."

On enhancing the Army's efficiency, he said "clear deliverables" have been identified in a focused manner.

"As part of force restructuring and optimisation, we have reviewed our organisational structures towards achieving better combat efficiencies and to achieve an optimal balance between the teeth and tail ratio," he said.

Gen Pande said cyber operations and support units are taking concrete shape and may be within a year's time they will be fully functional.

He said the major lesson learnt from the Russia-Ukraine conflict was that the security of the nation cannot be relied on outside assistance.

The Army Chief said the armed forces cannot rely on imports and the Army is fully committed towards the 'Atmanirbhar-Bharat (self-reliant India) initiative in defence.

He said the emergency procurement mandate was given to the Army in four tranches.

"In the first three, we had a total of 68 contracts with an outlay of Rs 17,500 crore," he said, adding majority of them have already fructified and that the equipment delivered were already deployed in the field formations.

"In the last tranche, we have done much better. We got into contracts for 73 different systems with an outlay of almost Rs 11,000 crore," he said.

"These span across a number of different new technologies that we are looking at and we are hopeful that once we deploy them in our formations, based on the feedback that we get, I think that will form the basis of our other major capital procurement cases," he said.

Referring to current geopolitical developments, Gen Pande said India's influence expands, new challenges are bound to build up.

"Some will question our rise, some will contest it while some will attempt to compete and to be able to secure our national interests, I think we need to possess the commensurate capabilities and this requires a continuous and focussed progression from where we are and where we need to move forward," he said.

He was talking about the need to enhance the country's military prowess.