I tend to agree with hellfire. Modi is something like Nehru 2.0. How to mess up a perfectly good system. Decent administrator to fix problems. In the rush to fix short term economics, he is going to mess up long term strategy.
The more one looks at it, the more one is convinced that CDS is a political appointee to push government agenda. The mess this government is creating at the fundamental level will take years to fix, if implemented.
Military ethos in civil society. They need their brains checked, seriously.
I don't think this fixes short term economics though. Potential savings in salaries can only begin 4 years from now. And it only saves 2 years of incremental salaries from the 5th year before elections in 2029, and that's only for about 80-90k soldiers, so it's not a lot. And the pension bill for the very first batch will be saved only after 20 years counting this year, ie, when the first Agniveer retires.
The CDS position is very important. He can pull rank over the chiefs when it comes to funding priorities, and we don't want a repeat of what happened during Kargil War. The issue is our security environment is extremely army-centric, which means the IAF is constantly butting heads with the army. Plus the fact that theaterisation cannot be conducted without a joint chiefs office. It increases the civilian hold over the military, but it's still very necessary. Problems happen when civilians end up interfering in the internal operations of the military to the point where it affects the core foundation of the forces, like this Tourist on Duty circus.