The heads of the Western Command, Air Marshal A.K. Singh and Lt Gen. Daljit Singh, at a Sanghe Shakti briefing in Chandigarh. (PTI)

New Delhi, May 17: A “joint doctrine” that envisages pooling in of the resources of the army, the navy and the air force for future military operations was presented at defence headquarters today to defence minister Pranab Mukherjee but the crucial issue of a chief of defence staff at the helm of an integrated command has been left untouched by the government.

In tandem with the promulgation of the doctrine, the air force and the army were tonight carrying out a joint manoeuvre as part of an ongoing exercise, Sanghe Shakti, near Ludhiana in Punjab.

Three IL 76 heavy-lift transport aircraft and 22 AN 32 medium-lift transporters have been tasked to paradrop a battalion (nearly 1,000 troops) “behind enemy lines” and capture an objective by daybreak tomorrow.

An air transport operation on this scale is being conducted after a gap of about a decade. The drill is being held at the Sidwa Khas Range near Ludhiana.

“The promulgation of a joint doctrine is a landmark event on the path to developing a truly “joint” capability for the Indian armed forces.

This doctrine contains the fundamental principles by which to conduct future joint operations with the aim of enhancing the joint war fighting capability of the Armed Forces,” the defence ministry said in an official release.

The doctrine was prepared by the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) and presented to the defence minister by the chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee and chief of naval staff, Admiral Arun Prakash, during a conference of senior commanders called to “promulgate” the doctrine. In an address to the closed-door conference, Mukherjee gave an overview of the security environment and threat perceptions.

There is still a question mark on whether defence headquarters has yet been able to evolve a unified military command to execute the recommendations of the joint doctrine. The doctrine is a document that sets out military situations and responses at three levels: basic, operational and tactical.

It provides the theoretical underpinning for a unified command and has been prepared by the IDS that functions under the chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee.

It is understood that the IDS interacted with military counterparts in the US, the UK and Australia intensively where unified command structures have been evolved.

But one of the main recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee of having a chief of defence staff as a single-point military adviser to the government has not yet been accepted.