Why in News:

• Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat perished when an Indian Air Force (IAF) Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed into the Nilgiris in western Tamil Nadu.

About the role of CDS

•  The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) acts as a single-point military adviser to the government as suggested by the Kargil Review Committee in 1999.
  • In 2012, the Naresh Chandra Committee suggested the creation of a Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee as a stopgap measure to alleviate concerns about the CDS.
  • The Lt. General D.B. Shekatkar (retd.) Committee also recommended the CDS position 
• CDS acts as the principal military adviser to the defence minister on all tri-service matters. But the three Chiefs continue to advise the defence minister on matters exclusively concerning their respective services. 
• The CDS is a four star general who also heads the department of military affairs.
• In addition to heading the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), the CDS is also the permanent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. The three service chiefs will be members of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
• However, CDS doesn’t exercise any military command including over three service chiefs.
• CDS will be in charge of the tri-services organizations/agencies involved in cyber and space.
• CDS will investigate contract monitoring, increasing the use of indigenous equipment, leveraging and reforming existing systems, and better prioritising the procurement of defence equipment.
• He will also prioritise capital purchase bids based on inter-services based on the anticipated budget.
• CDS will implement changes to strengthen the forces’ combat capability and is likely to assess plans for ‘out of area contingencies’ for countries in India’s neighbourhood.

Functions of CDS

• To head the Department of Military Affairs in the Ministry of Defence and function as its Secretary.
• To act as the Principal Military Advisor to the Defence Minister on all Tri-Service matters.
• To function as the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee
• To administer the Tri-Service organizations/agencies/commands.
• To be a member of Defence Acquisition Council chaired by Defence Minister
• To function as the Military Advisor to the Nuclear Command Authority.
• To bring about jointness in operation, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance, etc of the three Services.
• To ensure optimal utilisation of infrastructure and rationalise it through jointness among the Services.
• To implement Five-Year Defence Capital Acquisition Plan and Two-Year roll-on Annual Acquisition Plans, as a follow up of Integrated Capability Development Plan.
• To assign inter-services prioritisation to capital acquisition proposals based on the anticipated budget.
• To bring about reforms in the functioning of three Services with the aim to augment combat capabilities of the Armed Forces by reducing wasteful expenditure. 

Service Requirements

• The Defence Ministry has changed the rules for the Army, Air Force, and Navy to allow the Chief of Defence Staff to serve until the age of 65.
• After demitting as the CDS, he will be ineligible to occupy any government post.

The need 

• With the increasing complexity of security concerns in the current conflict arena, an integrated approach to defence strategy was required. There are communication challenges, as well as budgetary overruns by individual commands, which necessitated the collaboration of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
• As the “first among equals,” CDS will serve as a single point of contact and may be held accountable for his actions and choices. Military commands that have been restructured to make better use of resources will eliminate excessive redundancy and wasteful spending.
• Because CDS has been in the services for so long, expertise and understanding in dealing with adverse situations may be correctly leveraged in order to achieve the intended goals, thereby developing an architecture for joint commands.
• There is a need to induce integration (bringing together the three Services at various levels and placing them under one commander) in various services. However, there is a distinction to be made between integration and jointness of command.
• CDS will ensure and promote jointness (the three services working together independently) through joint planning of command operations, logistics, transportation, training, communications, repairs, and maintenance. This will ensure close cooperation and collaboration amongst the defence forces.

 Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/chief-of-defence-staff-gen-bipin-rawat-wife-11-others-die-in-iaf-helicopter-crash-near-coonoor-in-tamil-nadu/article37893955.ece