M A I N   N E W S

Army continues fire-fighting on gender bias
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 19
The Army today continued its fire-fighting exercise in the wake of reported remarks of its Vice-Chief, Lt Gen S. Pattabhiraman, that forces could do without women and insisted today that there was no gender bias in the forces while pointing out that it was for the first time in the history of the force that women officers had actually risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonels.

Army officials claimed that from among the first batch of women officers who joined the Army in 1992, some had attained the rank of Lt Colonels, the highest rank for short-commissioned officers. Although there were instances of women in the armed forces Medical Corps rising to the ranks as high as Air Marshals and Major Generals, for the first time women officers inducted in other non-combat branches had risen to the rank of Lt Colonels under the extended short service tenure enforced by the government.

The Army also sought to give out statistics in this regard and pointed out that from 1992 onwards, from the women inducted in the force only 10 women officers had sought to leave the force, while more than 900 others had opted to stay on.

“When the armed forces were opened as a career option for women, we used to get 35-odd applications for a single vacancy and the figure now has gone to as high as 50 per vacancy”, officials said.

For the past two days, the Army has been insisting that the remarks of General Pattabhiraman about women officers have been quoted out of context. The issue has donned political motives with women politicians even seeking the Vice-Chief’s suspension from the force.

The officials claimed that the Army had an exit ratio of almost 28 per cent between 1992 and 1998, but after that, the rate of women officers opting out had plunged to 5.2 per cent.

When the induction of women started, they were only allowed to serve in Army Service Corps, Army Education Corp, Ordnance Corp and Judge Advocate-General branch, but today streams like Artillery, Engineers, Signals, Electric and Maintenance Engineering and Intelligence corp had been opened to them, they said.

Career options for women officers are still better in the Indian Air Force, which has a women strength of more than 454 out of a total of 6,000 officers. Of these, 51 women officers are pilots, flying transport aircraft and helicopters and 98 in technical and engineering and mechanical branches, while the Navy has 100 women officers, some even taking charge of air traffic control, officials said.