Mature heads on young shoulders: Indian Navy Officer

What kind of young men and women do you look for?
They should be physically and mentally fit, have courage, patriotism and also academic brilliance. Our stringent training ensures that whosoever passes out of the Naval Academy is a physically strong, courageous person with the technical skills to handle state-of-the-art ships and aircraft.

For an officer, how important is technical knowledge?
Quite important. The Indian Navy is technologically advanced and we encourage our officers to upgrade their skills as the need arises.

We send our officers for higher studies, including MTech from IITs. Some take up research at in-house projects after a course in niche technical areas. These scientific projects are conceptualised and run as per the suitability of our ships and equipment.

Our new academy at Ezhimala has begun engineering training and every Navy officer (technical and executive) will now get a BTech degree at the end of the four-year training.

How is a naval job unique?
At a very young age, sometimes at 22-23, you are meant to take charge of an entire ship that costs several crores. Few or no other jobs thrust such great responsibility upon a young man.

What are the second career options for officers who retire young?
There are plenty of options. There is a department dedicated to this. Called the Directorate General Resettlement (DGR), it has a long list of courses that one can pursue while on the (Navy) job.

These help one settle down in a civilian life afterwards. Premier institutes like the IIMs have management programmes dedicated to defence personnel. Some officers even go abroad to study for career betterment.