By IANS,
New Delhi : The training of Indian Army officers is set for a major change with a decision Wednesday introduce courses on national, strategic and technical aspects in the initial years the men and women of the force spend in military academies.
With this, the focus of training will transform from being structured and focused on war fighting skills to being more intellectual in content, keeping in line with the new concept of “scholar warriors”.
The change has been mooted by the Shimla-based Army Training Command (ARTRAC), which placed a new proposal before the commanders meet, which had begun Monday and will continue till Friday.
“The current professional development philosophy for officers was focused mainly on structured and institutionalised training, aimed at enhancing war fighting skills.
“The ARTRAC proposal aims at ensuring that officers gained adequate understanding of issues of national, strategic and technical importance, in their formative years, through professional military education,” an Indian Army release said.
The conference also debated the major issue of maintaining equipment through its life cycle and felt the need for evolving an effective system that would comprehensively address this issue.
Much of the Indian Army’s equipment has entered the obsolescence stage, with new inductions and acquisitions stagnating for decades now.
For instance, India has not bought a single new artillery gun in the last 25 years since the Bofors corruption scandal broke in the late 1980s.
“On the life cycle sustainment of equipment, it was felt that there was a need for evolving an effective system that would comprehensively address equipment related issues,” the release said.
“The aim was for the stakeholders to take a womb-to-tomb view of the equipment, right from the concept formulation stage, so that sustainment costs are lowered,” the release said.
The army commanders also had an interactive session with Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma on the functioning of the integrated defence headquarters and coordination between military officers and civilian bureaucrats in the defence ministry.
In the next two days, the conference will debate on operational and human resource matters.