Yatish Yadav By

NEW DELHI:After replacing the Planning Commission with its new avatar NITI Aayog, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor A K Doval are working on an ambitious proposal to restructure the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), which currently functions as a research body on national security issues under the National Security Council Secretariat.

Sources said Doval had an hour-long discussion last week with Intelligence Bureau director Dineshwar Sharma and Research & Analysis (R&AW) chief Rajinder Khanna on the future role of NSAB in changing security dynamics of the country. The three top intelligence officers are understood to have decided that functional utility of NSAB should be more on security issues and it should be more actively involved with the government machinery in the hour of crisis.

The government is of the view that the existing research-oriented outlook of NSAB has to be transformed into a body of crisis-managers on security and strategic issues. Sources confirmed that Doval has already made some key changes in the working of Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) positioning it as the most important body that advises government on the basis of analysis drawn from intelligence inputs received from IB, R&AW and Military Intelligence.

A top government official said while the two years tenure of NSAB ended last month, the government is yet to reconstitute the board because of ongoing discussion on restructuring within the Prime Minister’s Office. One of the key proposals, the official said, is to make the board more professional and much leaner like NITI Aayog. According to the existing structure, NSAB has 17 members including the chairman. The recently expired board was headed by Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary, who earlier served as the prime minister’s special envoy for the Indo-US civil nuclear issues and later as Special Envoy and Chief Negotiator on Climate Change.

“The government is examining the possibility of having few members and more support staff to make it more effective in dealing with burning issues related to national security and policies. The proposed board could have six to eight members with a chairman,” the official added.

Under the existing system, senior retired officials having expertise in internal and external security, foreign affairs, defence, journalism, science & technology, economic affairs and distinguished members of civil society are selected as members on the board. Sources said there was an urgent need to overhaul the organisation as the government is trying to revive the three-tier structure of National Security Council. Besides NSAB, Strategic Policy Group and JIC are two other organisations under the National Security Council.

A former board member told The Sunday Standard the existing structure of NSAB and role in policy planning was almost zero. He said the country was faced with several crises in the last two years, but no emergency meeting was summoned to discuss or to prepare a report for the government to formulate action accordingly.

“We did not meet during the crises even once and nobody was even interested. The individuals were given projects with a 6-month or year-long deadline and that’s about it. The issues which require immediate intervention by the government were not considered,” the former NSAB member added.

A former R&AW officer and NSAB member Jayadev Ranade said NSAB needs more interaction with various arms of government instead of working in isolation and merely producing policy reports.

“While restructuring, two things needs to be looked into, first they need to review the selection process of members and implement a system through which NSAB could become more relevant, like interaction with concerned Parliamentary Standing Committees and meeting with political leaders,” Ranade said. He added the NSAB’s future role would also depend on the government proposal as they need to decide how much NSAB involvement they are planning in day-to-day functioning of National Security Council Secretariat.

Former DG BSF Prakash Singh, considered to be among the experts on internal security, had resigned from NSAB last year because there were hardly any significant meetings on issues related to important security and strategic matters. Singh said NSAB had lost functional utility and that was the reason he quit six months before the tenure of the board expired.

“NSAB definitely requires restructuring and its responses on issues should reach the government. Whether the recommendations are acceptable or not is immaterial. NSAB must start drafting the policies instead of authoring long-term research papers that hardly get noticed. It should be actively involved in addressing important issues related to strategic relations and national security,” said Singh.