It is only a matter of time before lady officers are assigned a combat role, said Lt Gen Gautam Dutt, Engineer-in-Chief, in his farewell visit to the city-based College of Military Engineering on Monday. “It has to come through. It is only a matter of time,” he said.

He also said that the way ahead was for women officers to get a permanent commission in the Armed Forces. “That is the way ahead. Do not feel threatened by it. Our corps of engineers is big enough to accommodate everyone,” he said, addressing the student officers of the CME.

In a free-wheeling speech laced with personal anecdotes from his career in the army spanning over 40 years, Dutt encouraged officers to be the “movers and shakers of the Indian Army,” assured them that the Army was indeed modernising the corps of engineers, batted staunchly for army women and called on officers to shun corruption.

“I sense some level of despondency among engineers that we have not sufficiently modernising the corps over the years. Unlike signals or artillery – which can access the latest technology – it is difficult in engineers. But it is same across the world for engineers,” he said.

Even in America, he said they were yet to discard the ancient bailey’s bridge (which takes a really long time to assemble and therefore difficult to use at war times).

However, Dutt added that modernisation of the corps was on; the army was incorporating the latest technology, conducting comparative trials of latest bridges and alive to new threats.

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