Govt accepts 65 ‘far-reaching’ reforms; no call on key postings of officers with MoD

New Delhi,
The Ministry of Defence today announced a major restructuring of the Indian Army, while leaving out key recommendations of its own appointed committee to integrate the Army with the ministry on certain select posts.

A total of 57,000 personnel, including officers, men and defence civilians, will be redeployed and moved away from units that are no more needed. Over the last decade, India’s armed forces have absorbed a fair amount of technological developments.

This is the first restructuring in several decades though a small downsizing was started in 1997 and then halted two years later.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley announced this after a meeting of Union Council of Ministers here. He termed the changes as “far reaching” and said these would be implemented by 2019.

Jaitley said a committee headed by Lt Gen DB Shekatkar (retd) suggested 99 points for structural changes in the Army involving cutting down flab and reducing revenue (maintenance) expenditure. Of these, 65 suggestions were accepted by the MoD yesterday.

Among the major changes is the reorganisation of Signals Corps. Army base repair workshops in peace stations will outsource part of their work, while base repair formations in forward areas will continue. Ordnance and transport will get better inventory mechanisms. Army postal establishments in peace locations will close down. All 39 military farms will be shut down, freeing about 20,000 acres. Twelve of these have been closed down before August 15.

The MoD has, however, not touched upon the crucial aspect of posting Army officers with the ministry on certain select posts. The committee had also suggested that Army officers be posted to Ordnance Factory Boards and the Department of Defence Production. Both have not been accepted yet.

The Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA), which plays a key role in maintaining quality, was supposed to be brought under the Army.

The committee was set up in May last year by then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The MoD had ordered restructuring in the wake of growing expenditure on manpower that left less than 20 per cent of the defence budget for weapons and equipment modernisation.

Implementation to go on till 2019

The measures suggested by a panel headed by Lt Gen DB Shekatkar (retd) are aimed at enhancing combat capability and rebalancing defence expenditure of the armed forces
These include optimisation of signals establishments and closure of all military farms and Army postal establishments in peace locations
Reforms will be implemented till 2019
In 1997, Army had ordered downsizing by 50,000 over a period of three years. It was done for two years but was stopped in 1999 following the Kargil skirmish
Indian Army is third largest in the world with over 38,000 officers (sanctioned strength 49,631) and 11.38 lakh soldiers