New Delhi: With formal appointment orders coming in last week, the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), under the Defence Ministry, is now staffed with designated senior officers, including uniformed personnel as Additional Secretary and Joint Secretaries.
Gen. Rawat holds the rank of both Secretary, DMA and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).
The Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC), Vice Admiral Atul Kumar Jain, will be the Vice CDS, but formal orders for the same are yet to come.
Lt Gen. Anil Puri has been appointed as the Additional Secretary in the DMA. He is the first uniformed officer to take over this position in a formal capacity, following his appointment by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. This position has been traditionally held by IAS officers.
Maj. Gen. K. Narayanan has been appointed as the Joint Secretary (Army) and Rear Admiral Kapil Mohan Dhir as Joint Secretary (Navy). Air Vice Marshal Hardeep Bains has been appointed as Joint Secretary (Air Force).
The government had earlier appointed Shantanu as Joint Secretary (Parliament and Works) and Rajeev Singh Thakur as Joint Secretary (Establishment and Coordination).
Till now, uniformed officers were holding positions only in officiating capacity. This meant that all files had to be moved to Secretary, DMA for decisions.
This is no longer needed because each appointment can now dispose of files according to powers delegated.
Also read: These soldiers are serving 24×7 to cremate veterans, dependents succumbing to Covid
Duties of the DMA
As reported by ThePrint in 2019, the DMA will be in charge of the affairs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. At the moment, the CDS will have no operational control over individual organisations, which will remain with the respective service chiefs.
The DMA will look after all procurement exclusive to the three services — barring capital acquisitions besides the Territorial Army and various functions relating to the Services.
Its mandate includes promoting ‘jointness’ in procurement, training and staffing for the services through joint planning and integration of their requirements.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
Also read: Army, CAPFs, ITBP—all reported on Covid duty. Where is NDRF, India’s disaster response force?
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