Emphasizing that the services are gender-neutral, Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar on Wednesday said that the Navy already has female fighter pilots and air operations officers and now women sailors are also being inducted into the Indian Navy.

The Navy chief added that all the remaining branches are being opened for women in the coming year.

“Services are gender-neutral. Already there are women doing 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,” said the Navy chief.

The Navy Chief was speaking at the National Defense Academy (NDA) at the passing out parade of the 143rd course of the NDA commenced on Wednesday early morning at the Khetarpal parade ground in Khadakwasla, Pune.

“We have had a 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, physical as the job is the same,” Admiral Kumar added.

( with input from ANI)