The Centre is learnt to have asked the top military leadership to expedite the creation of the proposed theatre commands aimed at ensuring synergy among the tri-services chiefs to deal with security challenges and future wars, government sources have told The Telegraph.

The modalities of the ambitious military reform — strategic restructuring of the armed forces into integrated theatre commands (ITCs) — are still being worked out.

“Earlier, it was believed that theatre commands for the military could start rolling out by 2023, but it did not happen as deliberations are still continuing to reach a consensus on the nature of its functioning,” a source said.

“Recently, the government communicated to the military leadership that the process needs to be expedited. Creation of theatre commands seeks to ensure tri-service synergy and prepare the military to confront current security challenges and those likely in the foreseeable future,” he said.

Major military powers, including the US, China, the UK and France, operate under theatre commands.

The government’s theaterisation drive was slowed down after the country’s first chief of defence staff, General Bipin Rawat, died in a chopper crash in December 2021. Rawat had been tasked with facilitating the restructuring of the military commands for optimal utilisation of resources through the establishment of unified theatre commands.

The government had in September 2022 appointed Lt Gen. Anil Chauhan as the next CDS.

Theaterisation means putting specific numbers of personnel from each of the three services — the army, navy and the air force — under a common commander for a unified military approach through a rationalisation of manpower.

The plan, according to sources, is to have five theatre commands. Each will have units of the army, navy and the air force, and all of them will work as a single entity looking after specified geographical territories under an operational commander.

At present, the armed forces have 17 service commands. The army and the air force have seven commands each while the navy has three.

Besides, there are two existing tri-service commands — the Andaman and Nicobar Command, headed on rotation by officers from the tri-services, and the Strategic Force Command, which is responsible for India’s nuclear assets.

Sources blamed the delay in the creation of the theatre commands on differences within the armed forces. The air force is said to have reservations about unified commands because of its limited resources compared with the army’s.

The IAF does not want to split its assets, which are fewer than the army’s. Besides, the IAF is said to have issues over who would lead the particular theatres and has contended that the nature of its operations is so fluid that all of India is one theatre for it.

The army has taken the lead in supporting the theaterisation plan, arguing that multiple commands lead to confusion and citing the example of China, which has a single Western Theatre Command for the entire Indian frontier.

The Indian Army alone has four commands on the China frontier — northern, western (which mainly looks after the Pakistan front), central and eastern. The IAF has three commands for China.