Union Government set up a High-powered Task Force for the revamp of Defence Management

The Union government decided to set up a high-powered task force to review the unfinished tasks and make further suggestions for implementation with a view to revamp of defence management in India. The government arrived at the decision ten years after the Kargil Review Committee and a Group of Ministers attempted the first major revamp.

The 14-member task force will be headed by Naresh Chandra, a former bureaucrat who has held top administrative jobs in the Ministry of Defence and Prime Minister's Office. Task force members include Air Chief Marshal (retd.) S. Krishnaswamy, Gen. (retd.) V.R. Raghavan, the former Department of Atomic Energy chief Anil Kakodkar, Admiral (retd.) Arun Prakash, the former R&AW head K.C. Verma, the former Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal, G. Parthasarathy, former diplomat, and senior journalist Manoj Joshi.

The panel is expected to start its work on 14 July and has six months to complete its report.
The Naresh Chandra committee will contemporarise the Kargil Review Committee’s (KRC) recommendations in view of the fact that 10 years have passed since the report was submitted. It is also expected to examine why some of the crucial recommendations relating to border management and restructuring the apex command structure in the armed forces have not been implemented. It will look at the reasons why the post of first among equals among the three service chiefs in the form of a Chief of Defence Staff was never created.

The formation of the task force marked the first comprehensive attempt at reviewing the entire gamut of defence preparedness and management in a decade.

The Kargil Review Committee (KRC) report a decade back had led to the setting up of a Group of Ministers which had suggested sweeping reforms in the country's security management system to ensure that any intrusion such as the one by the Pakistan Army in 1999 should not come as a complete and total surprise to the Government, the armed forces and the intelligence agencies. The KRC, headed by the late K. Subrahmanyam had been the first major attempt at overhauling the country's security after Independence.

The KRC report had led to major improvements in some areas, especially relating to procurement with the setting up of the Defence Procurement Board and the Defence Acquisition Council. This led to better preparedness as far as systems and technologies were concerned in areas such as armoured, Special Forces, strategic lift and assault, military aviation, intelligence and navy.