This Year, 5 Of 7 Army Commands To Get New Commanders

This year will see a rare coincidence wherein the Indian Army will see a major reshuffle at the top level. As the current Commanders in Chief (Army Commanders) retire this year, the Army will get five new ones.

In March, Lt. Gen. Amardeep Singh Bhinder (South Western Command, Pune) and Lt. Gen. Yogendra Dimri (Central Command, Lucknow) will be the first two Army Commanders to retire. Lt. Gen. Rana Pratap Kalita, who is in charge of the Eastern Command in Kolkata, will be the last of the five to retire. He will do so in December.

The other two officers, Lt Gen SS Mahal (Army Training Command, Shimla) and Lt Gen Nav K Khanduri (Western Command, Chandigarh), will retire in between.

Army Commanders of the Udhampur based Northern Command, Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi and Pune-based Southern Command will continue to be at the helm.

Any officer who wants to become Commander in Chief should have at least 18 months of service left. A source said that it is unusual for so many officers to leave the service in the same year, given their ages.

A Commander in Chief (CinC) of the Armed Forces is an independent authority to fight a war in the theatre of war and the headquarters of the command function as the war headquarters. There are a total of 17 Commands. The Army, Indian Air Force, and Indian Navy each have seven Commands, and the Indian Navy has three Commands.

There are also three tri-services commands that help the country fight wars. These are the Strategic Forces Command, the Andaman and Nicobar Command, and the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC).

At the Andaman Nicobar Command, Lt. Gen. Ajai Singh will also hang up his uniform this year, so there will be a change in command there as well. CISC Air Marshal BR Krishna will retire in January 2024, and a CinC from the Indian Army is likely to take his place.

‘Rarely do so many officers retire the same year’

Any officer who wants to become Commander in Chief should have at least 18 months of service left. Keeping the residual age, this cycle of so many officers retiring from the service in the same year comes rarely, said a source