Lieutenant Deepnoor Mai Bhago AFPI was commissioned into the Army Aviation 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 just 29 women, to take the Antim Pag at the Parameswaran Drill Square that morning.
The parade marked the passing out of the SSC-122 and SSC (Women)-36 courses, and was reviewed by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, PVSM, AVSM and VSM. For Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute for Girls in Mohali, it added another name to a growing list of alumnae serving as commissioned officers.
Her commission is worth reading closely, not for the ceremony, but for the branch she joined and the route she took to reach it. Both hold a lesson for any girl in Punjab weighing a defence career after graduation.
From Gurdaspur, to Mohali, to Chennai
Lieutenant Deepnoor is the daughter of Sukhbir Singh, a professor at Sardar Beant Singh State University in Gurdaspur, and Ramanpreet Kaur, a government school teacher.
It is worth sitting with that for a moment, because it says something about who actually joins the Indian Army from Punjab. Not a family of generals, but a university teacher and a schoolteacher from a border district, whose daughter trained at a Punjab Government institute and came out an officer.
That is the pattern across almost every commissioning story from Mai Bhago AFPI, a farmer’s daughter, a police constable’s daughter, a bus operator’s daughter, a schoolteacher’s daughter. The institute was built so that the cost of preparing a daughter for the armed forces would stop being the thing that decided whether she tried.
Why the Army Aviation Corps Is a Notable Commission
Most reporting of a commissioning stops at the rank. The branch is the more interesting part of this story.
The Army Aviation Corps was raised on 1 November 1986 and is among the youngest corps of the Indian Army. It operates the Chetak, Cheetah and Cheetal helicopters, the Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv, the armed Rudra variant, Light Combat Helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Its work is plain to describe and hard to do: observation and reconnaissance, casualty evacuation, load drops, search and rescue, and attack support. Army Aviation flies where fixed-wing aircraft cannot, including the high-altitude posts around the Siachen Glacier, where a helicopter is often the only link between a wounded soldier and a hospital.
For women officers, the corps carries added weight. Until early 2021, women in Army Aviation were restricted to ground duties, mainly air traffic control. That year the Indian Army opened combat aviation roles to women, and in May 2022 Captain Abhilasha Barak became the first woman officer to join the corps as a combat aviator, receiving her wings at the Combat Army Aviation Training School in Nashik.
Being commissioned into Army Aviation and qualifying as a combat aviator are two separate steps, and the flying course at Nashik is volunteered for and selected into later. But a woman commissioned into this corps in 2026 stands on ground that did not exist for her five years ago.
Lieutenant Deepnoor Mai Bhago AFPI: The Route Through OTA Chennai
Lieutenant Deepnoor passed out from the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, with the SSC (Women)-36 course. OTA Chennai has trained women officers since 1992, when the first batch of women cadets entered the academy.
For a graduate in Punjab wondering what the path actually looks like, this is it:
- Complete graduation.
- Clear a graduate-level entry, which for most women means the CDS examination for OTA, or a special entry such as NCC Special Entry or SSC (Tech).
- Clear the five-day Services Selection Board.
- Clear the medical board and make the All India Merit List.
- Train at OTA Chennai for about 49 weeks.
- Take the Antim Pag and be commissioned as a Lieutenant.
Our guide to CDS exam eligibility for women sets out all four entry options open at graduate level, and our five-day SSB breakdown covers the stage where most candidates are actually filtered out.
The point a Class 12 or first-year college student should take from this commissioning is that the route exists after graduation. Missing NDA does not end a defence career. It changes which door you walk through.
What Punjab Said
Punjab’s Employment Generation, Skill Development and Training Minister, Aman Arora, congratulated the newly commissioned officers and said their success would encourage more young women in the state to consider the defence services. He pointed to the state government’s continuing support, under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, for girls aiming at commissioned service.
Major General Jasbir Singh Sandhu, AVSM (Retd), Director of Mai Bhago AFPI, called the commissioning a milestone that would further energise the institute’s mission of preparing 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 Punjab Government residential institute. It is the only one of its kind in the country dedicated to preparing girls for commissioned officer entry into the Indian Armed Forces.
Its NDA Preparatory Wing for Girls, set up in July 2023, is training its third batch. A new academic and residential block named after Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw was inaugurated in November 2025.
With this commission, Lieutenant Deepnoor Mai Bhago AFPI joins alumnae now serving from the Air Force Academy at Dundigal to the Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala to the Officers Training Academy at Chennai.
Frequently Asked Questions
Lieutenant Deepnoor Mai Bhago AFPI is an alumna of the institute in Mohali and the daughter of Sukhbir Singh, a professor at Sardar Beant Singh State University, Gurdaspur, and Ramanpreet Kaur, a government school teacher. She was commissioned into the Army Aviation Corps of the Indian Army at the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, on 5 September 2026.
The Army Aviation Corps was raised on 1 November 1986 and is among the youngest corps of the Indian Army. It operates helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance, casualty evacuation, load drops, search and rescue, and attack support. Combat aviation roles were opened to women officers in early 2021.
She took the graduate entry route. After completing graduation, she cleared a graduate-level entry and the five-day Services Selection Board, then 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. Lieutenant Deepnoor Mai Bhago AFPI is the daughter of two teachers with no prior service background, which reflects exactly who the institute was built to serve. Admission depends on age and educational eligibility, not on family background.
For women, graduate-level Army entry runs through the CDS examination for OTA Chennai, NCC Special Entry, SSC (Tech), and other Short Service Commission entries notified from time to time. Our CDS exam eligibility for women guide covers all four options in full.
Thinking about this path for your daughter?
Mai Bhago AFPI’s Graduate Level Entry and NDA Preparatory Wing are open to girls from across Punjab. The institute is fully residential and government-funded. Call 0172-2233105 or 98725-97267, or enquire online.
