The attempt to integrate India's defence forces is facing major roadblocks as the turf battle between the three services intensifies.

With the appointment of a chief of defence staff -- military adviser to the government and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee -- nowhere in sight, the Integrated Staff Structure, created as a secretariat for the CDS and headed by Lieutenant General Pankaj Joshi, is increasingly becoming ineffective.

Vice-Admiral (retired) P S Das, who was the vice-chairman of the Arun Singh Committee that called for the integration, says the present system is a 'headless wonder'.

He told rediff.com that the structure is without 'accountability or authority'. Without the CDS, the entire structure is meaningless and a waste of resources what with so many senior officers posted to the ISS, the admiral says.

What is derailing the integration process is the enthusiasm of the three services to retain their respective turfs.

The ISS has three key posts -- at the Tri-Service Command in Port Blair, at the Strategic Command and the post of ISS chief, besides several other appointments, including the chief of Defence Intelligence Agency.

The Tri-Service Command is right now under a naval officer while the Strategic Command is with the air force; an army commander is the ISS chief.

A key part of the recommendations accepted by the government is the rotation of these and other senior posts among the three services.

It is rumoured that an army officer would be the next chief of the Tri-Service Command, but senior naval officers want to retain the post. Their argument is that it is predominantly a naval structure and has been a naval command.

It is being suggested that status quo be maintained at the Strategic Command and the ISS.

The navy's fears are understandable. The air force is reluctant to fall in line with the ISS plans of beefing up air assets in Port Blair because it does not have control of the airport there.

"If an air marshal takes over as the chief of the Tri-Service Command then he could hand over the airport to the air force one fine morning," a senior naval officer says. "Anyway, the air force thinks we shouldn't be operating aircraft."

If a lieutenant general were to be sent to Port Blair, the next chief of the ISS would be from one of the other two services. Understandably, there would be resistance from the largest service, the army, which is already floating names for the next ISS chief.

There is also a battle over the Strategic Command, which the air force wants to permanently retain because it believes it is best suited to operate nuclear assets. The army says it has operated missiles for long, while the navy says it too will acquire nuclear assets soon with the lease of nuclear submarines and nuclear bombers from Russia. The navy is also in the process of getting an indigenously developed nuclear submarine.

The government has delayed appointing a CDS saying it requires a political consensus. Sometime back the government had said it would call an all-party meeting to discuss the issue. But the meeting is yet to be scheduled.

There is also rivalry between the existing structures and newly created offices of the ISS. Most visible is the standoff between the Military Intelligence and Defence Intelligence Agency, which is part of the ISS.

After the chief of the DIA, which is part of the ISS, claimed that around 180 terrorists were killed in the Hill Kaka operations in Jammu and Kashmir, the DGMI lodged a protest with the army chief against him, sources say.

The Military Intelligence had put the number at 60, and the Intelligence Bureau of other sources had questioned even that figure.