Theatre command operationalisation is now the only recommendation among 34 examined by Parliament's Standing Committee on Defence for which the government has not given a final reply, the Committee said in its latest report tabled in both Houses on Friday. The Ministry of Defence's response to the panel's Action Taken Report places the long-pending restructuring of the armed forces at what the Committee called a decisive stage, with a final report on the exercise now sitting before the government.

The Ministry of Defence told the Committee the final report for operationalisation of Theatre Commands "is under consideration and further deliberations are ongoing." Nothing more specific was offered on timelines.

Theatre command operationalisation is the panel's lone unresolved item

Of the 34 recommendations the Committee examined in its earlier report, every other one has drawn a detailed government reply. Theatre command operationalisation stands alone, still pending a final word from the Ministry even as the Committee's report registers the scale of preparatory work already done on the military side.

That preparatory work, the Committee noted, has reached what it termed an advanced stage under the Joint Staff. A dedicated team of officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force has been constituted under the Chief of Integrated Staff to the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, to keep the exercise moving. The three Joint Staff officers on that team are studying the organisational models of foreign militaries and holding consultations across the Services to align the proposed reorganisation, with issues that need consensus routed to the Chiefs of Staff Committee for a common view.

A CDS transition landed in the middle of the process

The Committee's report arrives as theatre command operationalisation moves through a leadership change at the top of the process. Gen Anil Chauhan demitted office as Chief of Defence Staff at the end of May, having spent much of his tenure steering the theatre command file through repeated delay. Gen NS Raja Subramani took over as the third CDS days later, inheriting a project that predates his appointment by years and now carries the added weight of a parliamentary panel tracking its every recommendation.

The office, not just the officer, keeps the file moving

Continuity across the change of hands rests with the structures under the CDS rather than with any one individual. The Integrated Defence Staff, headed by the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, carries out the day-to-day coordination the reform depends on, a role that survives leadership transitions at the CDS level by design.

The Chief of Integrated Defence Staff post has itself changed hands this year, with the incumbent taking over at Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff on 1 July. That transition has run alongside the Joint Staff team's work on theatre commands, not paused it.

What the proposed architecture looks like

Under the structure the Committee describes, Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff will continue coordinating operational matters involving the theatres with the three Service headquarters, both through the transition and afterwards. Operational coordination, between theatres and between theatres and the individual Services, is meant to run through a Joint Operations Staff once the final structures are approved.

The Services themselves keep a seat at the table throughout. Consultations among the Army, Navy and Air Force are ongoing as the Joint Staff team works through the reorganisation, and formations across all three continue to report through their existing chains even as the theatre command question remains open at the top. Gen Dhiraj Seth, the Army Chief, sits on the Chiefs of Staff Committee that is expected to weigh in on the issues needing consensus.

Theatre command operationalisation and the decades behind it

The push for integrated theatre commands is not a recent idea. It traces back to the Kargil Review Committee of 1999, which recommended both a Chief of Defence Staff and integrated theatre commands after coordination failures during the Kargil War, and was picked up again by the Shekatkar Committee in 2016, which proposed distinct commands along western, northern and maritime lines. The CDS post itself was created in December 2019, more than two decades after the Kargil review first called for one.

The aim, as consistently described across these successive reviews, is to bring the Army, Navy and Air Force under unified operational command structures organised by geography or function, separating the raising and equipping of forces, which stays with the Service chiefs, from their employment in operations, which would sit with theatre commanders. Gen NS Raja Subramani now carries that file forward as the third officer to hold the CDS post since it was created.

For now, the Committee's report leaves the position unchanged from where the government's own reply puts it: under consideration, with deliberations ongoing, and no date attached.