'India is rapidly moving towards consolidating the armed forces'

NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that India is rapidly moving towards joining the three armed forces and efforts are on to have common logistic nodes so that the resources of one service can be made available to the other in a seamless manner.

"We are rapidly moving towards connectivity of all three services," Singh said, adding that "Our effort is to have common logistic nodes so that the resources of one service can be seamlessly made available to other services."

The Defence Minister spoke of the necessary synergy and fusion between civil and military stakeholders, and stressed that the presence of representatives from different sectors from both sides shows the "commitment" to achieving the goal that India envisions.

In the programme organised at Manekshaw Centre in Delhi Cantonment, he said that logistics is one of the sectors which has benefited the most from this collaboration.

Addressing the seminar on Army Logistics here, the Union Minister said that India has made rapid progress in the rail sector and more than 9,000 km of lines have been doubled in the last seven years. He said in the five years before 2014, the figure was only 1,900 kms.