OdishaPlus Bureau
The Ministry of Defence on Thursday issued a formal sanction letter to grant permanent commission to women officers in the Indian Army. Earlier this month, the SC had given the Centre a month’s time to follow the court’s orders on giving permanent commission.
“The move will pave way for empowering women officers to shoulder larger roles in the organisation,” said the Indian Army Spokesperson.
The order specifies grant of permanent commission to Short Service Commissioned (SSC) Women Officers in all ten streams of the Indian Army i.e Army Air Defence (AAD), Signals, Engineers, Army Aviation, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME), Army Service Corps (ASC), Army Ordnance Corps (AOC), and Intelligence Corps in addition to the existing streams of Judge and Advocate General (JAG) and Army Educational Corps (AEC).
The Selection Board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC Women Officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation.
Till now the percentage of women in the Indian Army was only 3.89 per cent, Navy 6.7 per cent and Air Force 13.28 per cent, excluding the medical corps, dental corps and Military Nursing Service.
The total of 1,653 officers including 77 having above 20 years of service, 255 having service tenure between 14 and 20 years and the fate of 322 women officers was to be decided by the verdict of the apex court.
