Military

Ministry of Defence

The role of the Ministry of Defence encompasses all policy and administrative matters of the armed forces of the country who are engaged against the forces posing serious threat to our national security. The Ministry also controls the policy and administrative issues of the attached / subordinate departments.

The minister of defense is a civilian member of the cabinet, chairs the Defence Council, and is in turn a member of the higher-level Cabinet Defence Committee. The Ministry of Defence has a permanent staff of civil servants headed by the defense secretary general. Of particular importance to the Ministry of Defence is the adviser for military finance, who heads the Military Finance Division in the Ministry of Finance but is attached to the Ministry of Defence. The adviser functions as the principal financial officer of the defense ministry and the subordinate services. The Ministry of Defence has two Divisions : Defence Division and Defence Production Division.

The defence Division is responsible for policy and administrative matters pertaining to the Defence of the Federation and three Armed Forces. It also deals with various administrative & financial matters pertaining to Aviation side and cases relating to meteorological, Civil Aviation Authority, Air Force, Security Force, Pakistan International Airlines Planning and Development matters side. The responsibility in respect of Inter-national negotiation, agreements and purchases of defence equipment along with allied accessories are also being handled by this Division.

The Defence Production Division is charged with the responsibility of providing the three Services with arms, ammunition and weapon systems through manufacturing or purchases. Besides providing the overall, re-build and upgrade services for major equipment like aircraft, tanks and sub marines etc. The Defence Production Division was created in 1972 after the experience of 1965 &1971 wars when all types of US military aid was suspended and it was felt necessary to strive towards achieving self-reliance in production of military equipments along with research based modifications, as per day to day requirements of the military and Para-military Forces.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee deals with all problems bearing on the military aspects of state security and is charged with integrating and coordinating the three services. In peacetime, its principal function is planning; in time of war, its chairman is the principal staff officer to the president in the supervision and conduct of the war. The secretariat of the committee serves as the principal link between the service headquarters and the Ministry of Defence in addition to coordinating matters between the services. The three branches within the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee deal with planning, training, and logistics. Affiliated with the committee are the offices of the engineer in chief, the director general of medical service, the director of inter-services intelligence , and the director of inter-services public relations. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee supervises the National Defence College, the Joint Services Staff College, and the Inter-Service Selection Board. )

The graceful building which houses the Ministry of Defence today, has not only witnessed, but has also lived through the history; both in terms of age as well as epochs. After the accession of Punjab in the British Empire in March 1849, Rawalpindi was made the Headquarters of Northern Command due to its central location and geo-political importance. Britishers established a wide variety of offices here. Likewise, the present building of the Ministry of Defence, which has a unique grand architecture with high arches, was built in the last quarter of nineteenth century to house the then Military Accounts Department. For a period of about one century, this building accommodated the Military Accounts Department and was named as Calcutta Dafter, as all the staff employed in the Military Accounts Department were Bengali Hindus. The building continued to be used by the Military Accounts Department even after independence. However, in 1962, with the establishment of Islamabad as the Capital, the Ministry of Defence was also shifted from Karachi to the present location.