new delhi setting the stage for creation of an integrated theatre commands in the country a bill to empower the government to constitute interservices organisations and provide disciplinary and administrative powers to their commanders was introduced in parliament on wednesdaythe interservices organisations command control and discipline bill 2023 was introduced by junior defence minister ajay bhatt amid the din in lok sabhathe bill comes ahead of the impending move to establish integrated or joint commands where all the manpower and assets of the indian army navy and iaf will be under the operational control of a single threestar general0414opposition mps begin march from parliament to ed office to submit memo over adani issuethe creation of these unified commands was stalled after the countrys first chief of defence staff general bipin rawat died in a helicopter crash in december 2021 with general anil chauhan taking over as the next cds in september last year they are once again on top of the agenda as reported by toi earlierthe proposed legislation will ensure the requisite command and control of the existing interservices organisations as well as the proposed integrated theatre commands to be created in the coming monthsit will empower the commanderinchief or the officerincommand of an interservice organisation to maintain discipline and ensure proper discharge of duties of all the personnel from the army navy and iaf serving under his commandat present military personnel are governed by different acts and rules of their own respective services these are the air force act 1950 the army act 1950 and the navy act 1957the new bill is an enabling provision for joint services organisations where personnel from all three services are posted it will ensure an officer from any one service can now exercise direct command over personnel from the other two services an official saidindia currently has only two unified commands the geographical andaman and nicobar command and the functional strategic forces command to handle the countrys nuclear arsenal which were set up in 2001 and 2003 after the kargil conflict with pakistan in 1999 there are also some triservice organisations like the defence intelligence agency defence cyber agency defence space agency and the armed forces special operations divisionin contrast there are as many as 17 singleservice commands army 7 iaf 7 and navy 3 which have little connection in planning and operations as well as commandandcontrol structuresconsequently there is the urgent need to build an integrated warfighting machinery within the budgetary constraints through the creation of the joint commands china reorganised its 23million peoples liberation army into five theatre commands in early 2016 to boost offensive capabilities and establish better commandandcontrol structures its western theatre command for instance handles the entire 3488km line of actual control from eastern ladakh to arunachal pradesh india in contrast has four army and three iaf commands for the northern borders with china