Alok Bhatnagar becomes first Flag Officer, TN & Puducherry

Alok Bhatnagar today became the first Flag Officer for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry Naval Area on being elevated to the rank of Rear Admiral.
Till now, an officer in the rank of Commodore was the senior most Naval Officer in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region and it has now been elevated as Flag Officer.
Bhatnagar who was elevated to Rear Admiral, has become the first Naval Officer in the newly created post, an official release said.
An alumnus of National Defence Academy, he served on 14 different ships in various capacities. He has commanded Torpedo Recovery Vessel TRV A71, indigenously built Missile Boat INS Prahar, Landing Platform Doct INS Jalashwa.

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Parrikar along with Union Skill Development Minister

Rajiv Pratap Rudy also handed retiring naval sailors "Skill Certificates" and placement letters.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) on July 13, 2015 to enhance the skill sets of retiring defence personnel and to enable them to be gainfully employed in nation-building.
The Navy thereafter carried out a detailed exercise in which it compared the curriculum of the courses run in service with the National Occupation Standard (NOS) and the job profiles promulgated by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). A total of 159 courses were mapped to 258 job roles and the skill gaps identified.

A total of 70 retiring naval personnel have been trained in collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation in their core domain by leveraging 'Recognition of Prior Learning'.
In addition, due to the professional competence and the extensive work experience of these sailors they have also been trained for instructing and assessing.
For the pilot batch, six job profiles in retail, health care and electronics were selected at three training schools of the Navy namely INS Hamla and School of Medical Assistants at Mumbai and INS Valsura at Jamnagar.
The training was carried out by Naval Instructors who had prior instructional experience and had undergone training with the respective Sector Skill Councils.

Training of the Pilot Batch was conducted in two phases during August and September this year during which a total of 70 sailors were trained.