Gen Rawat has ordered three different studies by the Military Secretary's branch and the Perspective Planning directorate, who will submit their reports by the end of this year and they will be combined into one and be presented to the Defence Ministry for further action
At a time when majority of its budgetary allocation is utilised for paying salaries, Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat is planning a massive restructuring of the force which will help to save money for acquiring modern weapon systems and reduce the number of officers and troops by 50,000 in the first phase.
Gen Rawat has ordered three different studies by the Military Secretary's branch and the Perspective Planning directorate, who will submit their reports by the end of this year and they will be combined into one and be presented to the Defence Ministry for further action.
"The plan is that by the middle of next year, the ideas such as shifting of Directorate General of Rashtriya Rifles to Jammu and Kashmir, Director General of Military Training to the Army Training Command in Shimla and merger of directorates doing similar jobs like the Information Systems and Information Technology can start getting implemented," senior Army sources told MyNation.
"The initiative to abolish the rank of Brigadier in the Army which would allow majority of the officers to retire as Major Generals (equivalent to Joint Secretary-level officer in civil services) can also be implemented with these proposals," they said.
When asked about the reason behind this move, the sources said the officer of the Lieutenant General needs to deal with the Northern Army Commander who is the head of operations in the entire state but sits here in Delhi. Unfortunately, a number of obstacles are faced due to his presence in Delhi, far away from the troops on ground.
Similarly, the Army Training Command was raised over two decades ago and takes care of entire training requirements of the force. But the Directorate general of Military Training still exists and functions from Delhi, which is not required and would be better utilised if they sit in ARTRAC headquarters. Likewise, the directorates of IT and Information System are doing similar tasks but operate separately and can be merged into one.
The sources said the current expenditure ratio of the force for revenue expenditure and capital expenditure in 83:17. This is very poor compared to the Navy and the Air Force, which maintain a ratio of 65:35. This means they spend 65 per cent of their allocated funds on salaries and maintenance of their equipment and manpower and spend the remaining for buying new weapon systems.
Sources said this is not a new idea and previously chiefs like Gen VP Malik had mooted the idea of cutting troops level to turn the Army into a lean and mean fighting machine. Gen VK Singh had also gone ahead with this idea of transforming the Army.
After the restructuring of the Army Headquarters, the chief said the force would be able to cut down around 300 officers from the capital itself. Moreover, the force restructuring in first phase would cut down 50,000 troops from the 1.3 million-strong Army and in the long-run, the figure would reach 1.5 lakhs.
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