Chandigarh, May 23
Army Headquarters (AHQ) has got a new name. It has been formally designated as the Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence (Army). The renaming move is the result of the ongoing exercise to integrate the three service headquarters with the Defence Ministry. A military headquarters was set up in India by the British in 1790 and this was the forerunner of the post-Independence AHQ.
According to a letter received by Headquarters Western Command here from the Additional Directorate General Staff Duties at AHQ last week, the Army's apex establishment is no longer to be referred as Army Headquarters in official communication. Instead, only the new nomenclature is to be used.
The letter states that amendments were made to the manual of office procedures earlier this month, following which orders to use the new name were issued.
Since Independence, AHQ, and now the Integrated Headquarters of MoD (Army) has been co-located with the Defence Ministry at South Block in New Delhi. The AHQ, as it is today, traces its origin to 1790, when Army Headquarters was set up by the then Governor-General Warren Hastings with a commander-in-chief at its head and two principal staff officers to assist him. The strength of the British-Indian Army at that time, according to the Army's official history, was 90,000 personnel. Through successive Governors-General, Viceroys and commander-in-chiefs, Army Headquarters weathered political and military developments, changing its organisation and structure to suit the requirements of the day.
While the Army has just re-renamed its headquarters, defence sources said that the Navy had done it some time ago. The Air Force is yet to take this step.
Following significant changes in the security environment and the politico-military situation, the Group of Ministers had, in 2002, recommended that the headquarters of the three services be integrated with the Ministry of Defence rather than function as mere ‘‘attached’’ departments of the ministry.
This was done after reviews had found deficiencies at the operational, administrative and logistical levels in the functioning of the earlier system. The move to integrate the headquarters was to ensure that the services become a part of the national decision making and policy formulation process, thereby streamlining the entire process.
