IMTRAT

IMTRAT traces its origins to a reconnaissance mission India sent to Bhutan in May 1961, led by Brigadier J. S. Aurora. On 20 July 1962, Colonel B. N. Upadhyay of the 9th Gorkha Rifles took over as the team's first commandant with an initial cadre of around 15 officers, and that year the team also raised the Wangchuk Lo Dzong Military School at Haa to train Bhutanese officer cadets and non-commissioned officers. The office of commandant, originally a colonel's posting, was later upgraded to brigadier and is today a two-star, major general–level appointment.

IMTRAT is responsible for training personnel of the Royal Bhutan Army and the Royal Bodyguard of Bhutan, drawing its own officers and other ranks from across Indian Army arms and services as well as the Indian Air Force. Beyond the military school, the team also runs the Indo-Bhutan Friendship Hospital at Haa, established in 1970, and maintains a detachment in the capital, Thimphu. The Indian Air Force separately staffs air traffic control supporting Paro airfield, a distinct arrangement from IMTRAT's own training mandate. Because Bhutan has no Minister of Defence, IMTRAT's commandant additionally serves as an informal military advisor to the King of Bhutan, the Royal Bhutan Army's supreme commander-in-chief.

The mission's location carries its own strategic weight: Haa district sits beside Tibet's Chumbi Valley, an area where China has long maintained a significant troop presence, at the junction of the Bhutanese, Indian and Chinese borders. Periodic border frictions in the decades since — most visibly the 2017 Doklam standoff nearby — have kept IMTRAT's training and advisory role central to Indo-Bhutanese defense cooperation, with senior Indian Army leadership continuing to visit the team to review joint training initiatives.