New Delhi, Aug. 5: India’s armed forces are ready to hire women as full-fledged officers on a par with men, the chiefs of the army, navy and the air force have decided.

The first batch of women on permanent commission with a tenure of 20 years of service and extendable according to rank and performance is likely to debut in 2013 after four years of training, Air Marshal Sumit Mukherjee, air officer personnel at the Indian Air Force headquarters, said here today.

He said a formal decision would be announced “in a month or two”.

In a right about-turn after recommending in 2005 the exclusion of women from permanent commission for 10 years, the top brass have now decided to grant them the privilege. The issue of permanent commission is linked to combat roles officers have to undertake, leading soldiers into battle.

Without doubt, the decision to grant permanent commission to women will be popular with all those who demand gender equality. But beyond the questions of culture, principle and ethics of equal rights for women, there are crucial matters of policy that govern battlefield and cross-border and hostage situations on which the Centre will have to take a call.

Two examples of conflict situations often cited in any discussion on hiring women in the armed forces focus on a battlefield scenario and an air-combat scenario. In one instance, it is asked if a woman soldier, even if medically fit, will be physically strong enough to evacuate two casualties in time by carrying them on her shoulders.

In another scenario, how will the government and society react to a woman combatant trapped in a hostage situation or if she is taken prisoner in a cross-border raid? In the 1999 Kargil war, Indian Air Force pilot Nachiketa was shot down in Pakistan and released later. In the same war, the discovery of the mutilated body of a young army officer, Lt Saurav Kalia, inflamed passions across the country. How will the government and society react if a woman were to be in their place?

“These are matters on which decisions will have to be taken at a much higher level,” Mukherjee said. “They are important questions of policy. There are also questions of ethos and culture that are being worked on. I am at the moment concerned with working out the modalities of granting permanent commission to women as the decision has been accepted by the Chiefs of Staff Committee.”

Mukherjee said the committee had concluded that the experience of drafting women as short service commissioned officer “has been very good”. There have been instances of women cadets often faring better than male cadets at training but have still not been assigned to operational roles in which promotions can be faster.

This month, for the first time, the navy has selected two women cadets who are being trained to be principal warfare officers on board martime surveillance aircraft that also perform combat duties such as submarine detection and killing.

Across the armed forces medical corps, women who are doctors get permanent commission and at least two have risen to the rank of lieutenant general and equivalent.

The navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, who is also the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, is understood to have taken a nod from the political establishment to change the predominantly male culture of the armed forces.

“It is more important for us men to be sensitised to take the women on board,” he said last month.

Mukherjee said the Indian Air Force was also studying the experience of other air forces in deciding roles for women. He said women in Israel’s air force were assigned combat missions. But in most militaries where women are hired, they usually get support roles and are not easily given assignments in close combat situations.

The services headquarters is working on executing the new policy by deciding on recruitment procedures, opening up the National Defence Academy — the primary stage at which officers are hired — and increasing the number of seats to accommodate lady cadets in the air force, military and naval academies.

It is decided that there will be no quota for women. But if women qualify on merit, in physical standards and in psychological tests, they will be recruited and be eligible for permanent commission.

The headquarters is currently not considering recruiting women in other ranks below the officer cadre.

Mukherjee said it was possible that to start with, there might be one batch comprising only women for ab initio (basic) training.