New Delhi: The Army is considering inducting women in other ranks (OR) in its services and combat support streams through the Agnipath scheme, ThePrint has learnt.
The proposal is being deliberated upon in the top echelons of the Army and the details are yet to be ironed out, sources in the defence establishment said.
“…the proposal will likely go through in the coming three to five months. Once the Army is through with the decision, the Ministry of Defence will take the final call,” a source said.
This would be a first for the Army as till now, only women officers were inducted into the services and combat support streams such as the Artillery, Army Aviation, Intelligence, Signals, Army Services Corps, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) and that too, mainly owing to directions from the Supreme Court.
In the Army, women were inducted in ORs — which is below the officer level — but only in the case of Military Police. They are still not being inducted into the combat arms of the Army — Infantry, Armoured Corps and Mechanised Infantry — though the Navy and Air Force have opened up all avenues for them.
Across branches within the Army, women officers make up five percent of the total officer cadre, said the source quoted above.
The source added that in view of the Centre’s policy of having better women representation in different fields across the country, the Army aims to become a gender-agnostic force by recruiting more women.
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Women in Army
The government first approved the induction of women in military police in January 2019. At the time, the plan that was laid out was to have 1,700 women soldiers by 2036 in batches of 100 women recruits each year.
That year, then defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman took to social media to announce the recruiting of women in OR for the first time in the Corps of Military Police.
In the post, she included the need for women in military police for investigation of offences such as rape, molestation and theft. She said they were needed in missions where the Army requires assistance from police organisations; to help civil police and administration for evacuation in forward areas during hostilities; crowd control of refugees comprising women and children; searching and frisking of women during cordon and search operations or at check posts.
The first batch comprising 83 women soldiers were inducted in the military police in 2021 in Bengaluru through the usual course, like their male counterparts.
In 2022 the induction of women in military police started through the newly-introduced Agnipath recruitment scheme across the country.
The Army is also a big contributor to the UN Peacekeeping missions abroad. So inducting more women would also enable the Army to send more of them on such missions wherein each mission mandates the inclusion of a certain percentage of women personnel.
The Army deployed its largest-ever contingent of women soldiers for UN Peacekeeping Operations in the Abyei region of Africa, a contested area between northern and southern Sudan in January this year.
The women’s platoon, comprising two officers and 25 ORs, who were a part of the Infantry battalion deployed in the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).
India has been sending women contingents from the central armed police forces and became the first country to send an all-women one to Liberia in 2007.
The Indian Air Force and the Navy have also been inducting women in cadres under the Agnipath scheme.
In 2022, the Navy began recruiting women sailors through the new scheme, allowing women to be deployed on warships. The Navy was the only force to recruit both men and women under the scheme soon after it was announced. The Indian Air Force announced in October 2022 its decision to induct 10 percent women under the Agniveer scheme. The force started recruiting women Agniveers from July this year.
According to government data, currently, there are 155 women Agniveervayu in the air force and the Navy has 726 women Agniveer sailors.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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