From joint weapon acquisitions to cross postings, Defence Ministry promoting integration culture in armed forces

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Department of Military Affairs is working towards creating a culture of integration among the forces for which many steps have been taken and many are in the pipeline. To further strengthen integration and jointness among the defence forces, many steps have been taken like the decision to have cross postings of personnel in other services, holding of joint exercises and joint staffing in organisations, the senior government officials said.

«The forces will soon see the three services chiefs having personal staff from other services to help them carry out their tasks on a daily basis to promote the integration of the three services,» they said. Many other steps have been taken like bringing personnel from all three services on par in terms of giving admissions in schools run by respective services.

«Earlier, for example, a school run by the navy gave first priority to wards of its personnel while Defence Ministry civilians were given second priority and Army and Air Force personnel were kept after them,» the officials said. «Now the wards of personnel from all three services would be in the first priority category and this would be applicable in schools run by all three services,» they said.

Similarly, the institutes like the Kota House or Army or Air Force Golf Course in the national capital would give memberships to their personnel only but now they would be open to all the personnel, they said. The officials said over the years, the services had developed infrastructure and systems for their service-specific requirements only but now this culture of integration has to be created as the country moves towards creating theatre commands which will have personnel from all three services fighting the wars of the future