Corps of Signals

Corps of Signals provides the life lines of the army in arranging communications of all sorts. The Corps of Signals of Indian Army enables all commanders to exercise command and control over their troops during operations. Until the telegraph was adopted by the army its communications were operated by various means including the blue and white flags by day and by lamps at night. Later on the messages were transmitted by means of buzzer keys across field cables. There is a record of a signal service in India in 1857. Telegraph lines were also laid for the assault on Lucknow during 1857 with much success. Its communication channels are high speed radio, teleprinters and field telephones.

Objective of Corps of Signals
The main objective of Corps of Signals is to make the Indian Army Network Enabled Force and Network Centric Force. This will implicate consolidation of all networks so as to provide the Indian Army with an optimum, secure, reliable and robust infrastructure that can meet both operational and peacetime requirements and one that is capable of withstanding technical and physical degradation. The Corps of Signals remains the lead agency and nodal centre for information and cyber security both within the Defence Services and at the national level. A holistic approach has been adopted to develop the Communication and IT infrastructure in all its dimensions of the military organisation.

History of Corps of Signals
With the experience gained in various operations, it was decided in 1911 to organise signals as a separate establishment under the protection of the corps of army engineers and miners. A signal company formed a part of each division and a nucleus of a wireless company for the lines-of-communications. Further developments were interrupted by the declaration of the war. The Royal engineers and the Indian army provided officers for the signals. In October 1914 a Signal Service Depot was formed at Kirkee which was to be responsible for training reinforcements which were needed very urgently for the rapidly expanding corps. Corps of Signals was established in 1922.

The Signal Training Centre and Depot was located at Jabalpur. The Army Signal School and Wireless Training Section were responsible for the training of regimental signallers and personnel for wireless units. The field units consisted of four cavalry brigade signal troops, seven divisional signals, two corps signals and two signal parks. In 1933 a new experiment was started in the Corps with the inauguration of the Boy`s Company at the Signal Training Centre which proved a great success.

The momentous strides made by the Corps of Signals in the last few decades have truly been stupendous and without parallel.