Pravin Sawhney

The army chief, General Bipin Rawat is under pressure from the government to cut his army to size (no pun intended). Reason: With the bulk of annual defence allocations being spent on the pay and allowances of 13 lakh army, there is little money for modernisation of the three defence services.

We now have the third report from the single-member Hooda committee in addition to the four Study Groups set-up by the army chief himself, and the Shekatkar committee which submitted its report in December 2016. The Shekatkar committee had recommended cutting of 57,000 troops over three years; the saved finances were proposed to be utilised for new army verticals like Electronic Warfare, Cyber warfare and so on.

The army chief’s groups have promised to slash 100,000 troops over two to three years to meet the challenges of modern war. According to Gen. Rawat, the army needs three things for modern war: technology infusion; restructuring of army from the present bloated formations to agile integrated brigade groups; and most importantly, to be the lead service in war (with the IAF in support role).

The Hooda committee has reportedly made