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Subject: General Science

Topic: India’s Defence Programme

The Supreme command of the Armed forces vests in the President of India. The responsibility for national defence, however, rests with the Cabinet. The Defence Minister (Raksha Mantri) is responsible to Parliament. for all matters concerning defence of the country. Administrative and operational control of the armed forces is exercised by the Ministry of Defence and the three Service Headquarters.

Army

The Army is organized into the following seven command:

Organisation

• Tie principal task of the Ministry is to frame policy directions on Defence and security related matters and communicate them for implementation to the Services Headquarters, Inter- Service Organi-sations, Production Establish-ments and Research & Development Organisations.

• The principal functions of the Departments are as follows:

• After Independence, Ministry of Defence was created under the charge of a Cabinet Minister and each service was placed under its own Commander-in -chief, (tn 1955, the Commanders- in-chief were renamed as the Chief of the Army Staff, the Chief of the Nval Staff and Chief of the Air Staff, in November, 1962 a Department of Defence Supplies was created for planning and execution of schemes for import substitution of defence requirements! In 2004, the name of the Department of Defence Production and Supplies was changed to Department of Defence Production. In 1980, the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare was-created

(i) The Department of Defence deals with the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) and three Services and various Inter-Service Organisations. It is also responsible for the Defence Budget, establishment matters, Defence policy, matters relating to Parliament.

(ii) The Department of Defence Production deals with matters pertaining to defence production, indigenisation of imported stores, equipment and spares, planning and control of departmental production units of the Ordnance Factory Board.

(iii) The Department of Defence Research and Development is headed by a Secretary, who is the Scientific Adviser to the Raksha Mantri. Its function is on advise the Government on scientific aspects of military equipment and logistics and the formulation of research, design and development plans for equipment required by the Services.

(iv) The Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, deals with all resettlement, welfare and pensionary matters of Ex-Servicemen.

• Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) was created on October 1,2001. Since then, HQ IDS has been-acting as the single point organisation inculcating judments and synergy between the Armed Forces, by way of integrating policy, doctrine, war fighting and procurement.

• The three Services Headquarters, viz., the Army Headquarters, the Naval Headquarters and the Air Headquarters function under the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), the Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) and the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) respectively. The Inter-Service Organisations, under the Department of Defence are responsible for carrying out tasks related to common needs of the three Services such as medical care, public relations and personnel management of civilian staff in the Defence Headquarters.