Giving shape to the country’s specialised tri-service divisions — special operations, cyber and space — the government has named two-star officers from the three services to oversee the setting up of the organisations.
“The officers will work out the modalities and set up the headquarters and the organisations. Personnel will be drawn from the three services on fixed tenure,” a defence source said.
While each division will draw personnel from all the three services, the Special Operations Division will be headed by the Army, the Defence Cyber Agency (DCA) by the Navy and the Defence Space Agency by the Air Force. All three divisions will function under the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS).
Major General A.K. Dhingra will head the Special Operations Division and Rear Admiral Mohit Gupta will lead the DCA. The Special Operations Division is likely to be headquartered at Agra, while the DCA would be based in Delhi, two different sources confirmed.
A two-star officer (Air Vice Marshal) will head the DSA to be located in Bengaluru.
The Special Operations Division will draw personnel from the Army’s Para Special Forces (SF), Navy’s (MARCOS) Marine Commandos and Air Forces’ Garud commandos.
Towards the end of last year, the government had formally sanctioned the setting up of the three divisions. Initially, the Army would form a major component of the divisions as it has the largest number of SFs. The other two services would gradually increase their strength.
The idea is to eventually have all Special Forces of the three services under one command and control structure. “This will ensure resource optimisation as well as streamlining operational planning for smooth execution of operations,” the first source said.
The setting up of the specialised tri-service commands was proposed by the Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012.
