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Integration at MOD
Joint coordinated staff work remains elusive in the services
By S.Pattabhiraman
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The services with the Navy taking the lead now stand integrated, de-jure but only on paper. De-facto. Whereas, the individual Service Head Quarters in Delhi are designated as integrated Head Quarters of MOD (Army/Navy/Air Force) instead of the earlier (Army/Naval/Air Head Quarters), the progress on actual integration designed to produce joint coordinated staff work has remained elusive. Even though a monitoring mechanism by way of a committee answering to the defence secretary exists to periodically bring forward progress made, no attempt has been made towards apportioning responsibilities, delegating powers and most importantly rationalising civil/military interface.
Lack of coordinated staff-work mostly leading to either sub optimal or faulty recommendations have continued to hamper the desired integration between the three services and the staff at MOD. Based on recommendations of the Arun Singh Committee report (2001-2002), as a follow-up to one of the key ingredients of the Kargil Review Committee Report, the three services were to be integrated both vertically & horizontally to function as a unitary department of defence answering to the defence minister.
The very recent and on going issue of the 6th Pay Commission recommendations not having been adequately discussed prior to finalising the same is a striking example of this non integration. I shall mention a couple of other examples, before suggesting few recommendations, based on my personnel experience in the South Block corridors towards the end of my service. The revision of Cantonment Bill, before it was finally presented and passed as an act in 2006 had only been possible by the three services lead by the army (which is most affected) standing up to the MOD staff and appealing with good reason to the defence minister, that the services were not adequately consulted prior to its earlier approval obtained from the defence minister on file by the same MOD staff. We managed to use a window provided by a presentation to the standing committee of Parliament on Defence (with the graciousness of the defence secretary in chair!) to’ review certain key features’ actually turning it around and averted a catastrophic situation. Similar was the case with the Armed Forces Tribunal, where again the services were not given adequate time to dissect the draft bill and on the pretext of expediting the process of introducing the bill in order to meet certain promises made, an attempt was made by the MOD staff to rush through. Once again an impending crisis was averted by the services at the level of chief/vice-chief and defence secretary.
In an earlier issue of this journal, I had recommended for consideration of the government, the appointment of a four star Chief of Joint Staff (CJS), in order to optimise the functioning of the HQ Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) as also in the interim provide an effective alternate to the CDS’ I would like to reinforce the recommendation for a CJS, also from the point of view of better integration between the services and the MOD Notwithstanding the appointment of the CJS, from the viewpoint of integration, the present three star Chief of Integrated Defense Staff to Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC) could well take over and be assigned certain delegations presently with the defence secretary. This vertical split in the charter of the defence secretary would help in certain purely MOD issues, which may not require intimate interaction with other government departments such as MEA/MHA etc, to be dealt with in a more coordinated and urgent manner and arriving at decisions without any glitches. The subject which could be delegated are numerous e.g. Ex-servicemen welfare, administrative matters such as Personnel services, Education, Canteen, Discipline, Historical Research, JAG’ss branch etc. This vertical separation by having the present CISC and (future VCJS) de-facto functioning as defence secretary (military matters), obtaining RM/s approval on files, could be complimented by a horizontal, shifting of relevant sections headed by joint secretaries to function under the CISC.
The suggested broad decision of responsibilities as above can be refined by appointing a committee to give recommendations of such delegation and more importantly rationalisation of the civil, military officers and staff to man and streamline the existing functions to achieve true integration. Should the recommendation on integration as suggested be accepted, long pending matters such as approval for the official histories of the 1965, 1971 wars and the Kargil conflict may see the light of the day.
The moot point however is that the MOD needs to be triggered into acting on this suggestion. The obvious route would be for the chiefs of staff committee to introspect as to why HQ, Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) has not sought and got any meaningful delegatory powers towards more holistic joint functions when one of the twin aims in raising of the IDS was to achieve true integration between the services & the MOD. Unfortunately we are letting the integration agenda adrift because of our obsession with CDS & Jontmanship sans MOD staff. Would the COSC through CISC dwell into this suggestion?
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