Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman was commissioned into the Army Ordnance Corps of the Indian Army at the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, on 5 September 2026. She was one of 342 officer cadets, and one of 29 women, to take the Antim Pag that morning at a parade reviewed by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, PVSM, AVSM and VSM.
Most commissioning stories begin at the passing out parade. This one begins eighteen months earlier, with a rank that should have made more noise than it did. In the Combined Defence Services Examination 2024, Diksha Dhiman of Pathankot, a student of the Punjab Government’s Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute for Girls in Mohali, secured All India Rank 8.
Eighth in the country. That result earned Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman a place at OTA Chennai, and the branch and route that followed are worth reading closely for any graduate in Punjab weighing a defence career.
The Family Behind It
Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman is the daughter of Pawan Kumar, a businessman from Pathankot, and Indu.
When her CDS result came out in 2025, her father’s reaction was characteristically plain. He said he was proud of her, and that she had worked with discipline and dedication. No talk of destiny or sacrifice, just work, done properly, over a long time.
Pathankot sits at the top of Punjab, hard against the Jammu border, in a belt where the Army is not an abstraction. It is a garrison town, and it produces a steady flow of officers. What it has not historically produced in numbers is women officers, and that is changing.
An All India Rank 8 Deserves Its Own Sentence
It is worth pausing on what All India Rank 8 in CDS actually means.
The Combined Defence Services examination is conducted twice a year by the Union Public Service Commission. Lakhs apply. The written paper alone eliminates the overwhelming majority, and of those who clear it, only a minority survive the five-day Services Selection Board.
To finish eighth in that field is not a matter of being told what to study. It is a matter of having built, over years, the kind of preparation that holds up under a UPSC paper, English, General Knowledge and Elementary Mathematics, all three cleared with margin and with a sectional cut-off in each.
A rank like that does not come from last-minute intensity. Our guide to the common mistakes NDA and CDS aspirants make covers the habits that separate candidates who clear from candidates who almost clear, and nearly all of them are habits, not abilities.
What the Army Ordnance Corps Actually Does
The Army Ordnance Corps is one of the largest and oldest services of the Indian Army, and it is misunderstood by aspirants who imagine that a non-combat branch is a lesser one.
The corps is responsible for the provisioning, procurement, storage and distribution of nearly everything the Army needs to function, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, spare parts, clothing and general stores. It runs the depots and the supply chain that keep formations operational, including in high-altitude and forward areas where a break in supply is not an inconvenience but an operational failure.
In plain terms, an infantry battalion is only as effective as what reaches it. The Ordnance Corps is what reaches it.
For a young officer, this is a career with unusually transferable weight. Officers of the corps work in large-scale logistics, inventory management, procurement and materials handling, skills that translate directly into supply chain and operations leadership in the civilian world after a Short Service Commission tenure ends. Parents who ask what happens after ten or fourteen years find the honest answer easier here than in almost any other branch.
Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman: The Route She Took, Step by Step
Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman’s path is the clearest available illustration of the graduate entry route, and it is worth setting out plainly, because so many Punjab families assume that missing NDA closes the door.
- Graduation completed.
- CDS examination cleared, at All India Rank 8 in CDS 2024.
- Five-day SSB at a Services Selection Board.
- Medical board and the All India Merit List.
- About 49 weeks of training at the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, with the SSC (Women)-36 course.
- Commissioned as a Lieutenant on 5 September 2026.
If you are a graduate in Punjab today, that is your map. Our complete guide to CDS exam eligibility for women covers all four graduate-level entry options, and our CDS and AFCAT preparation guide covers how to build the two-year run-up.
OTA Chennai has trained women officers since 1992, when the first batch of women cadets entered the academy. Thirty-four years later, 29 women were commissioned from it in a single parade.
What Punjab Said
Punjab’s Employment Generation, Skill Development and Training Minister, Aman Arora, congratulated the newly commissioned officers, Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman among them, and said their success would inspire more young women from Punjab to pursue careers in the defence services. He reaffirmed the state government’s support, under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, for girls aiming at commissioned service.
Major General Jasbir Singh Sandhu, AVSM (Retd), Director of Mai Bhago AFPI, welcomed the commissioning as a milestone that would strengthen the institute’s efforts to prepare more daughters of Punjab for officer entry into the armed forces.
The Institute Behind the Story
Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute for Girls, in Sector 66, SAS Nagar (Mohali), is a fully residential Punjab Government institute. It was set up so that a girl’s preparation for a commissioned officer’s career does not depend on what her family can pay in coaching fees.
Its NDA Preparatory Wing for Girls, established in July 2023, is training its third batch. A new block named after Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw was inaugurated in November 2025.
Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman is not the first officer this institute has produced. Fellow alumna Lieutenant Deepnoor was commissioned into the Army Aviation Corps at the same parade, and on current form neither will be among the last.
Frequently Asked Questions
Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman is an alumna of Mai Bhago AFPI, Mohali, and the daughter of Pawan Kumar, a businessman from Pathankot, and Indu. She secured All India Rank 8 in CDS 2024 and was commissioned into the Army Ordnance Corps at the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, on 5 September 2026.
The Combined Defence Services examination is held twice a year by UPSC, with lakhs of applicants. The written paper eliminates most, and only a minority of those who pass it clear the five-day SSB. All India Rank 8 means eighth in the country across that field.
The Army Ordnance Corps handles the provisioning, procurement, storage and distribution of nearly everything the Army needs to operate, including ammunition, weapons, vehicles, spare parts, clothing and general stores. It runs the depots and the supply chain that keep formations operational, including in forward and high-altitude areas.
Lieutenant Diksha Dhiman took the graduate entry route: graduation, then the CDS examination (All India Rank 8 in CDS 2024), the five-day Services Selection Board, the medical board and the All India Merit List, followed by about 49 weeks of training at OTA Chennai with the SSC (Women)-36 course.
Yes. The institute is fully residential and government-funded, and admission depends on age and educational eligibility, not on family background. Our CDS exam eligibility for women guide sets out the graduate-level routes in full.
Admissions are open
Girls from across Punjab can apply to Mai Bhago AFPI’s Graduate Level Entry and NDA Preparatory Wing. The institute is fully residential and government-funded. Call 0172-2233105 or 98725-97267, or enquire online.
