The Army has decided to make an integrated approach to promote the female officers of the Regiment of Artillery. On 29 April the first batch of female officers will be commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery.
This promotion strategy will aim for women empowerment into positions of greater leadership roles and further make the future selection procedure gender-neutral.
The military has less number of vacancies for higher positions which include the position of Colonel, Brigadier, Maj General, and Lt General. Considering this, a common gender-neutral selection board will look into the promotions of those officers who have been hired after the 2009 batch. There will not be any new selection board established for the female officers instead they will be considered for the selection with their male coursemates.
The female officers of the Army have been provided with good opportunities for their recruitment into the Regiment of Artillery which is a combat support arm. Those female officers who will complete their training on 29 April from the Officers Training Academy in Chennai will join the frontline Artillery regiments.
The female officers are already serving in the Army Air Defence, Judge Advocate General Department, Army Aviation, Army Ordnance Corps, Intelligence Corps, Corps of Signals, Army Service Corps, Electronic and Mechanical Engineers, Army Educational Corps, Army Dental Corps (ADC), Army Medical Corps (AMC), and the Military Service (MNS). The last group is the cadre which is dedicated just to females.
A unique "senior command course" was recently introduced to prepare female officers for commanding units.
For the female officers who are serving before the batch of 2009, a special selection board was conducted. 507 female officers who were short service commissioned received permanent commissions last year. For the "command assignments" at the colonel rank, 108 female officers have been impaneled. And those female officers who are already serving the position of Colonel have been sent to the "command assignments". Over 55 percent of the female officers of commanding units are in charge of the deployed United in the operational regions.
