Cabinet Decision: Army to be made more agile with better teeth-to-tail ratio

The central government has decided to reassign the jobs of 57,000 officers and men of the Indian Army in an effort to have a better teeth-to-tail ratio in the force.

The tooth-to-tail ratio is a military term that refers to the amount of military personnel it takes to supply and support (tail) each combat soldier (tooth).While an army with a high tooth-to-tail ratio will have more personnel devoted to combating, the soldiers will lack the support provided by the tail. It's the job of military planners to strike a balance between the teeth and tail.

The defence ministry has now set in motion a reform process in the Army in accordance with the recommendations of a high-powered panel, headed by Lt Gen DB Shekatkar (retd), that submitted its report in December 2016.

The panel's aim was to suggest ways and means of reducing the defence ministry's revenue budget. The departmental analysis found that salary and pension consumed the bulk of the defence ministry's budget, leaving little money for military modernisation and infrastructure build up.

The first phase of the reforms involves redeployment and restructuring of approximately 57,000 posts of officers, junior commissioned officers, men (other ranks) and civilians.

“Out of 99 recommendations of the panel, the government has accepted 65. They will be implemented by the end of 2019 to improve the combat capabilities of the Army. It would lead to redeployment of 57,000 officers, JCOs and men for various other tasks,” defence minister Arun Jaitley said here on Wednesday after the cabinet meeting.

Freeing of additional manpower is important for the Army with the defence ministry making it clear to the military that purchase of new hardware doesn't necessarily mean recruitment of new people and the services have to look for manpower from their ranks.

The restructuring includes the closure of military farms and army postal establishments in peace locations.Earlier this year, the Cabinet Committee on Security agreed to shut 39 military farms and procure the dairy products for the troops from the market.

The defence ministry asked the armed forces to optimise the signals establishments to include radio monitoring companies, corps air support signal regiments, air formation signal regiments, composite signal regiments and merger of corps operating and engineering signal regiments.

The repair branches like base workshops, advance base workshops and static workshops will be restructured.Similarly, the ordnance wing would be restructured to include vehicle depot, ordnance depot and central ordnance depot, the defence ministry said in a statement.There would be better utilization of supply and transport echelons within the Army and animal transport units.