The Border Security Force (BSF) air wing has made history with the induction of its first woman flight engineer, Inspector Bhawna Chaudhary, following the completion of an in-house training capsule. She, 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 under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), supporting operational needs of paramilitary forces and special units like the NSG and NDRF.

Five subordinate officers were "trained ab-initio"
Officials told PTI that the five personnel underwent ab-initio training conducted by BSF air wing instructors. The two-month program, starting in August, included 130 hours of practical training, with exposure to operational sorties, including recent flood relief operations in Punjab and other states.

"The BSF air wing has been facing a critical shortage of flight engineers in its Mi-17 helicopters fleet.

IAF had trained first batch of 3 subordinate officers
"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 said.

Inspector Chaudhary is the first women flight engineer of the BSF air wing, he said.

The unit operates a fixed wing Embraer jet for VIP duties apart from helicopters such as Mi 17 1V, Mi 17 V5, Cheetah and ALH Dhruv.

The about 3 lakh personnel strong BSF was raised in December, 1965 and it is primarily tasked to guard Indian borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh apart from rendering a variety of duties in the internal security domain of the country.