Vice Chief of the Air Staff (India)

The Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS) is the deputy to the Chief of the Air Staff of India and second-highest ranking officer of the Indian Air Force. The VCAS is a PSO (Principal Staff Officer) at Air Headquarters at New Delhi. He is responsible for operation and flying related tasks. In the event that the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) is absent or is unable to perform his duties, the VCAS assumes the duties and responsibilities of the CAS. The VCAS is normally held by an officer of three star rank and is held by an air officer of the rank of Air Marshal.[1]

Vice Chief of the Air Staff
Incumbent
Air Marshal Harjit Singh Arora
since 1 July 2019
 Indian Air Force
AbbreviationVCAS
Reports toChief of the Air Staff
SeatAir Headquarters, New Delhi

The current VCAS is Air Marshal Harjit Singh Arora. He succeeded Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria to the post in September 2019. As Vice Chief, Air Marshal Arora will directly be in charge of IAF's ongoing capability build-up and visualizing its future technology requirements.

Order of Precedence

The VCAS ranks at No. 23 on the Indian order of precedence, along with the Vice Chiefs of Staff of the Indian Army and Indian Navy and the Army Commanders (GOC-in-C), Naval Commanders (FOC-in-C) and Air Commanders (AOC-in-C).[2] The VCAS is at the Apex Pay grade (Grade 17), with a monthly pay of ₹225,000 (US$3,200).[3]

Appointees
No.RankNameAppointment dateLeft officeReferences
1 Air Vice Marshal Atma Ram Nanda 1 January 1963 4 August 1963
2 Arjan Singh** 5 August 1963 31 July 1964 [4]
3 Pratap Chandra Lal** 1 October 1964 14 January 1966 [5]
Air Marshal 15 January 1966 1 September 1966 [5]
4 Ramaswamy Rajaram 13 December 1966 18 June 1969
5 Shivdev Singh 15 July 1969 31 March 1973
6 Yeshwant Vinayak Malse 1 April 1973 30 September 1973
7 Hari Chand Dewan 1 October 1973 31 March 1976
8 Anand Ramdas Pandit 1 April 1976 31 March 1977
9 Idris Hasan Latif** 19 May 1977 31 August 1978
10 Edul Jahangir Dhatigara 4 September 1978 31 January 1980
11 Lal Singh Grewal 1 February 1980 31 December 1980
12 Trilochan Singh Brar 22 September 1981 31 December 1983
13 Jagdish Raj Bhasin 1 January 1984 31 October 1984
14 Prem Pal Singh 1 November 1984 31 October 1984 [6]
15 Subramaniam Raghavendran 1 January 1986 29 February 1988
16 Nirmal Chandra Suri** 1 March 1988 31 August 1991
17 Palamadai Muthuswamy Ramachandran 14 October 1991 28 February 1993
18 Pondicherry Jayarao Jayakumar 1 March 1993 30 April 1994
19 Pratap Rao 6 June 1994 31 July 1995
20 Satish Kumar Sareen** 1 August 1995 31 December 1995 [7]
21 Trevor Raymond Joseph Osman 1 January 1996 31 March 1997 [8]
22 Anil Yashwant Tipnis** 1 April 1997 31 December 1998 [9]
23 Prithvi Singh Brar 4 January 1999 31 July 2000 [10]
24 Vinod Patney 1 August 2000 31 July 2001 [11]
25 Srinivasapuram Krishnaswamy** 1 August 2001 31 December 2001 [12]
26 Satish Govind Inamdar 1 January 2002 31 January 2003 [13]
27 Michael McMahon 1 February 2003 30 September 2004 [14]
28 Sunil Kumar Malik 1 January 2011 31 July 2011 [15]
29 Ajit Bhavnani 18 July 2005 31 October 2006 [16][17]
30 B. N. Gokhale 1 November 2006 31 December 2007 [18]
31 Pradeep Vasant Naik** 1 January 2008 31 May 2009 [19]
32 Pranab Kumar Barbora 1 June 2009 31 December 2010 [20]
33 Norman Anil Kumar Browne** 1 January 2011 31 July 2011 [21]
34 Krishan Kumar Nohwar 1 August 2011 31 May 2012 [22]
35 Dinesh Chandra Kumaria 1 June 2012 30 June 2013 [23]
36 Arup Raha** 1 July 2013 31 December 2013 [24]
37 Ravi Kant Sharma 31 December 2013 30 May 2015 [25][26]
38 Birender Singh Dhanoa** 31 May 2015 31 December 2016 [27]
39 Shirish Baban Deo 31 December 2016 30 September 2018 [28]
40 Anil Khosla 1 October 2018 30 April 2019 [29]
41 Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria** 1 May 2019 30 September 2019 [30]
42 Harjit Singh Arora 1 October 2019 Incumbent [31][32]

** Went on to become Chief of the Air Staff

See also

References
  1. "India Strategic – The authoritative monthly on Defence and Strategic Affairs". indiastrategic.in. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  2. "President's Secretariat" (PDF). Office of the President of India. Rajya Sabha. 26 August 1979. Retrieved 5 August 2010.
  3. (PDF). 20 November 2015 https://web.archive.org/web/20151120092637/http://7cpc.india.gov.in/pdf/sevencpcreport.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 November 2015. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. "Marshal of The Air Force | Indian Air Force | Government of India". indianairforce.nic.in.
  5. "Pratap Chandra Lal Padam Vibhushan, Padam Bhushan, DFC CAS | Indian Air Force | Government of India". indianairforce.nic.in.
  6. "AIR MARSHAL PP SINGH APPOINTED VICE CHIEF OF AIR STAFF" (PDF). pibarchive.nic.in. 16 November 1984.
  7. "Satish Kumar Sareen PVSM AVSM VM ADC CAS | Indian Air Force | Government of India". indianairforce.nic.in.
  8. "Air Marshal Trevor Osman". The General Thimayya Memorial Trust.
  9. "A.Y. Tipnis PVSM,AVSM, VM, ADC CAS | Indian Air Force | Government of India". indianairforce.nic.in.
  10. "rediff.com: Kargil hero is IAF vice-chief". www.rediff.com.
  11. "The Hindu : Vinod Patney Vice-Chief of Air Staff". www.thehindu.com.
  12. "Latest Releases". pibarchive.nic.in.
  13. "The Hindu : New vice-chiefs for Navy, IAF". www.thehindu.com.
  14. "Air Marshal McMahon is new IAF vice-chief - Times of India". The Times of India.
  15. "English Releases". pib.nic.in.
  16. "Bhavnani is new Vice Chief of Air Staff". www.rediff.com.
  17. "Air Marshal Bhavnani new Vice Chief of Air Staff". www.outlookindia.com.
  18. "Air Marshal B N Gokhale takes over as new Vice Chief of Air Staff". news.webindia123.com. 1 December 2015.
  19. "PV Naik new Vice Chief of Air Staff". www.hindustantimes.com. Hindustan Times. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  20. "AIR MARSHAL PK BARBORA NEW VICE CHIEF". pib.nic.in. PIB.
  21. "Air Marshal NAK Browne will be The Next Chief of Air Staff". pib.nic.in. PIB.
  22. "Air Marshal K K Nohwar, chief of the Eastern Air Command, will take over as the new IAF vice chief on August 1". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. TOI.
  23. "Air Marshal Kumaria to take over as IAF Vice Chief". www.firstpost.com.
  24. "Air Marshal Arup Raha Take Over as Vice Chief of Air Staff". pib.nic.in. PIB.
  25. "Vice Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal RK Sharma PVSM AVSM VM ADC Retires on 31 May 2015". http://pib.nic.in/. External link in |website= (help)
  26. "Air Marshal R K Sharma to retire Read more at: //economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/47489305.cms". economictimes.indiatimes.com. External link in |title= (help)
  27. "Air Marshal BS Dhanoa takes charge as Vice Chief of Air Staff". zeenews.india.com.
  28. "Air Marshal SB Deo takes over as Vice Chief of the Air Staff of Indian Air Force". pib.nic.in.
  29. "Air Marshal Anil Khosla to take charge as Vice Chief of Air Force on Monday". Business Standard India. Press Trust of India. 28 September 2018. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  30. "Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria PVSM AVSM VM ADC Takes Over as Vice Chief of the Air Staff" (Press release). Press Information Bureau. 1 May 2019.
  31. @IAF_MCC (1 October 2019). "Air Marshal Harjit Singh Arora, took over as Vice Chief of the Air Staff today. He was commissioned into the fighter stream of IAF in Dec 1981. He has a vast experience of operational flying on modern and legacy fighters in the IAF inventory" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  32. "Air Marshal Harjit Singh Arora AVSM ADC assumes charge as Vice Chief of the Air Staff". 1 October 2019.
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