NEW DELHI: Final recommendations to reorganise the country’s war structure and the armed forces into integrated theatre commands (ITC) will reach Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s desk after Navy Day, which falls on on December 4.All three service chiefs and the Chief of Defence Staff will meet after Navy Day to give the final go-ahead to the ITC proposal, a source said. It will subsequently be forwarded to the Cabinet Committee on Security, the apex decision making body on national security. The proposal has 198 initiatives to achieve restructuring, which will be a long-drawn process as a lot of changes on the ground will have to be initiated, the source added.The defence of the country will be looked after by three ITC with the concept of ‘One Border One Force’.The warfighting structure of is being reorganised into theatre commands so as to have assets of all three forces under one commander, who will be responsible for all operations under his theatre. The Maritime Theatre Command, based out of Karwar in Karnataka, would be entrusted with coastal and maritime operations. The Western Integrated Theatre Command will be responsible for defence and security bordering Pakistan. The Northern Integrated Theatre Command will have the entire northern border with China under its area of responsibility with headquarters in Lucknow.Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi at an event said that the army’s vision for 2047 is to “transform into a modern, agile, adaptive, technology enabled and self-reliant future ready force, capable to deter and win wars in a multi-doman operational environment, across the full spectrum of operations to protect our national interests in synergy with the other stakeholders.”As per the General Upendra Dwivedi, the new structure will “separate force generation and force application as unique to our conditions, our short term threats and long term challenges”.
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