The money will be accounted in the month of March for January, February and March. This is just one point for illustration.
The other important point is about the unification of the command. I Would like to go into the history of the problem. It is better –that we analyse this; possibly in doing so, I will also try to grasp the problem more effectively. It is better to go into the history of the position. Normally in this matter, we go by what is prevailing in the other countries, particularly I would the United Kingdom. What was the position in our country ? There was very, rigid unification before independence, because their Army Commander-in-Chief was supposed so be the Commander-in-Chief of all the services. But after independence, we have deliberately changed this position. We have now put every Chief of Staff in charge of his own service. There can be that type of integration which prevails in America, if we have got the balance development of all the three services. We cannot say that that situation prevails in our country today. If we had taken that sort of attitude and made the Army Commander-in-Chief as the supreme person of all the armed services, possibly our Air Force would not have made the same progress as it has made in the last 10 or 15 years in our country. I must point out that our integration is rather more logical and more perfect than what they have tried to do now in U. K. Till last year they were having three Ministries functioning independently of each other. We have no such thing, because all the three services function in an integrated way under one Defence Ministry here.
The most important committee that we have is the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff. That Committee is the highest technical advisory body of the Government. One point made by Mr. Anthony was about the chairmanship of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. The rule prevails there that the senior member among the Chiefs of Staff would he the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. I do not think there is anything wrong about it.
Let us not try’ to make it so absurd. Let us see what is the function of the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He is not the operational head. Really speaking, he is the Chairman who co-ordinates, who presides over the meetings of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He is not the chief operational head, as is the Chief of Defence Staff in England, for example. We can certainly have it; I do not say we should not have it. But we can have it when we reach that stage when we have developed all the three services in a balanced manner; at that stage certainly one can think about it. A particular type of organization would be good for a particular type of situation. It would be wrong to say that what is good for England today is good for us, or that the type of organization which prevails in the Pentagon is good for us. Possibly it is not so. I can certainly say that we have not come to the stage when we can take a final view about it and say that we can have a Chief of Defence Staff as in England or we can have the type of organization which prevails in America. From my own experience, I find that our system is more elastic. For example, in 1963, out of 365 days in the year, I met all the three Chiefs of Staff together on 169 days. We could review the situation, discuss and assess matters. They have direct approach to the Defence Minister, with whom they can sit and discuss matters. Really speaking, we should evolve systems and institutions according to our own requirements. If experience shows us that certain modifications will be necessary in this organisation, I would not be hesitant to accept those modifications.
There is nothing wrong in this. But it did not function in this particular case for reasons which I have explained in my assessment of the NEFA Enquiry. It does not mean that that particular system was wrong. That type of operation cannot be run from Delhi— that was exactly the criticism. Really speaking, it must be in the hands of those people who are there.
