Arun Jaitley clears major military reforms

Displaying his flair for incisive decision making, Mr Arun Jaitley, who took additional charge of the Ministry of Defence very recently, is understood to have approved the proposal for widespread military reforms, based on the report by Lt General (retd) DB Shekatkar Committee. This comprised major recommendations for enhancing the combat potential of India’s three armed forces, rationalising the defence budget, and improving the ‘teeth-to-tail’ ratio. The Committee had been set up by earlier Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in 2015 and had submitted its report on 21 December 2016.

According to MoD sources, on 18 March, Mr Jaitley had reviewed a presentation on the new strategic partner policy, plans to create a chief of defence staff (CDS) post, and restructuring of higher defence structures along with the Shekatkar committee report. The Government is expected to shortly clear the creation of a CDS post (by whatever name) and the strategic partner policy, in order to support the ‘Make in India’ policy in the defence sector. A major recommendation involves hiking of the defence budget to 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent of the GDP.