What’s this Shetakar expert Committee All About :

The Committee of 11 experts led by Lt Gen D B Shekatkar (Retd) was appointed by the Ministry of Defence in May 2016 to “Recommend Measures to Enhance Combat Capability and Re-balance Defence Expenditure of the Armed Forces”.

Exact Role/Mandate: The Committee was mandated to:

* To review training, administrative and logistics establishments vis-à-vis what is described as “best practices under Indian conditions”, the purpose being to optimise manpower in the defence forces and increase ‘teeth to tail’ ratio.

* Suggest “redeployment, repositioning and restructuring of manpower and resources” to improve combat capability.

* Suggest integration of civil infrastructure and resources into the logistic system of the defence forces in war and peace to “avoid duplication and reduce expenditure”.

* Suggest measures to “correct the bias of defence budget towards revenue expenditure”.

What’s Making News:

The experts committee submitted its 561 page report to the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on December 21, 2016 and is under consideration of the government. A host of committee’s recommendations along with the comments of the defence ministry have already been submitted to the finance ministry for inclusion in the forthcoming budget proposals for 2017-18. The committee’s report will be an important input in finalising of the allocations for India’s defence budget by the finance ministry.

In A Nut-shell: 

A 4-star chief of defence staff (CDS) as the chief military adviser to the defence minister, devising an integrated war approach by the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, financial management reforms and doing away with the multi-layered system of according financial clearances (first within the finance division of MoD and then at the finance ministry), effective utilisation of resources and roll on of unused funds are some of the proposals of the Lt Gen DB Shekatkar expert committee.