Indian Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar in New Delhi on Saturday. ANI
New Delhi: For the first time in its history, the Indian Navy has inducted women sailors, Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar said on Saturday adding that around 3,000 Agniveers had been recruited and 341 among them are women.
Nearly 10 lakh individuals had applied for the available positions in the Indian Navy, 82,000 of them were women, the Navy chief said.
“We have had good response, for 3000 vacancies we had almost 10 lakh applicants of whom 82,000 were women. We don’t know finally how many of them will meet all the standards because we do not have separate standards of education and physical training as the job is the same,” Admiral Kumar said.
Emphasising that the services are gender-neutral, he said that the Indian Navy has previously accepted fighter pilots and female air operations officers, and that women sailors are now being enlisted under the Agnipath model of recruitment.
“Services are gender-neutral. Already there are women engaging in combat roles. There are fighter pilots and air operations officers in the Navy. Now all branches are being opened in the coming year, we have started inducting women sailors as well. It is a landmark achievement,” the Navy chief said.
Over the past year, India has had a very intense and engaging time, Kumar said adding that the Indian Navy had achieved very high operational tempo in the last one year. He went on to indicate that in the upcoming year, more women would be allowed to join all remaining branches of the Indian Navy.
In keeping with the Centre’s thrust on self-reliance in the defence sector, The Indian Navy has given assurances to the government that it will become ‘Atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) by 2047.
“The government has given us clear guidelines on Atmanirbhar Bharat. We have given assurances that the Indian Navy will become Atmanirbhar by 2047,” the Navy Chief said.
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