In a gender equality thrust for the first time, a policy decision has been taken in concurrence with the political establishment, by the Chiefs of Staff Committee, comprising the Army, Navy and Air Forces Chiefs, to recruit women officers on permanent commission for 20years, extendible thereafter as in the case of male officers, according to rank and performance.
The first batch of women officers is likely to debut in 2013, after a training of four years, said Air Marshal Sumit Mukherjee at the air force headquarters in New Delhi on 5th August’08.
Mukherjee added that the experience of putting women on short service commission has been very encouraging and women cadets often fared better than their male colleagues during training but were not assigned operational roles (as a matter of policy) where promotions are faster.
Permanent Commission however will entail women officers combat roles where they would have to undertake leading soldiers to battlefronts and would allow women officers better opportunities in promotions.
There are 900 odd women officers presently deployed in the Armed forces mainly in the medical corps, corps of signals and corps of engineers, the latter two are recognized as combat units. Women who are doctors get permanent commission and a number of them have risen to the rank of Lt.General, Major General etc. In Air Force, the numbers of employed women are about 450 compared to about 100 in Navy, all of them placed in the non-operational jobs.
The services headquarters is now busy arranging increased number of seats in National Defence Academy and other Academies to accommodate women cadets for training to be absorbed in Navy, Military and Air force in due course.
It is decided that there will be no quota system for women and recruitment will be purely on the basis of merit. Also for the present, no women will be recruited in ranks below the officer’s grade.