Nepal Army appoints major generals to newly created four commands

KATHMANDU: Nepal Army (NA) has reformed its organizational structure by converting its divisions into commands.

The NA structure has been converted into four commands by scrapping the current eight divisions.

As per the new structure, there have been Eastern Command, Central Command, Western Command and Valley Command. Earlier, there was an NA division in each province and one in the Kathmandu Valley.

The NA has made appointments to all the four commands.

According to NA Spokesperson Santosh Ballav, Major General Ashok Raj Sigdel has been appointed as the in-charge of Valley command headquarters, Major General Bigyan Dev Pandey as the in-charge of Western Command, Major General Binaya Bikram Rana has been appointed as the in-charge of Central Command and Major General Santosh Kumar Dhakal as the in-charge of Eastern Command.

Earlier, Sigdel, Pandey, Rana, and Dhakal had been division commanders at Hetauda, Surkhet, Pokhara and Itahari, respectively.

The organizational structure of the NA has been reformed to fit the geographical structure of the country as the current structure is administrative in nature, said Ballav.

The responsibilities which the headquarters was carrying out previously have been handed over to the commands, limiting the headquarters to the task of strategic planning.

The proposed commands will be equipped with an airbase, logistics base and a hospital.

The area of the command has been delineated based on the rivers.

Each command is led by a major general while a brigadier general will lead the brigades.  The battalions and companies will remain in districts as they are now.