NEW DELHI: The Border Security Force (BSF) air wing has achieved a milestone in its over 50-year history with the induction of its first woman flight engineer following the completion of an in-house training capsule. Inspector Bhawna Chaudhary, along with four male subordinate officers, was recently awarded flying badges by BSF director general Daljit Singh Chawdhary. Since 1969, the BSF has operated the aviation unit of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), catering to the operational needs of paramilitary forces and special units like the NSG and the NDRF. Officials told news agency PTI that the five subordinate officers were “trained ab-initio by the instructors of the BSF air wing and they recently completed their two-month long training.”
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During the training, which started in August, the personnel underwent 130 hours of skill development and gained real operational exposure as various BSF air wing assets flew sorties, including during recent floods in Punjab and other states. “The BSF air wing has been facing a critical shortage of flight engineers in its Mi-17 helicopters fleet. The Indian Air Force (IAF) trained the first batch of 3 subordinate officers but the second batch of five personnel could not get a training slot there due to various constraints,” an official said. “The BSF then approached the MHA to allow it to conduct an in-house training for preparing flight engineers for its air wing and the five personnel including Inspector Chaudhary recently completed their training,” the official added, confirming that Inspector Chaudhary is the first woman flight engineer of the BSF air wing. The unit operates a fixed-wing Embraer jet for VIP duties, in addition to helicopters like Mi 17 IV, Mi 17 V5, Cheetah, and ALH Dhruv. The roughly three-lakh-strong BSF, raised in December 1965, primarily guards Indian borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, while also performing various internal security duties across the country.(With agency inputs)
