Lieutenant General Manoj Pande is under consideration as a replacement for Lieutenant General Mohanty as the next Vice Chief of Army Staff. The latter is due to superannuate on January 31.

The proposal to appoint Lieutenant General Manoj Pande as the next Vice Chief of Army Staff has been approved.

Sources in the government say that the proposal to appoint Lieutenant General Manoj Pande as the next Vice Chief of Army Staff has been approved.

Manoj Pande has tenanted important staff assignments and was posted as Chief Engineer at the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea. He was Director-General at Army Headquarters dealing with subjects of discipline, ceremonial and welfare.

The officer would be replacing the incumbent Lieutenant General CP Mohanty who is due to superannuate on January 31.

General Pande is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers (The Bombay Sappers) in December 1982. He is a graduate of Staff College, Camberley (United Kingdom) and attended the Higher Command Course at Army War College, Mhow at Indore in Madhya Pradesh and National Defence College (NDC) at Delhi.

During his 37 years of distinguished service, Pande took an active part in Operation Vijay and Operation Parakram.

He commanded an Engineer Regiment along the Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir, an Engineer Brigade as part of the Strike Corps, an Infantry Brigade along the Line of Control, a Mountain Division in the high altitude area of western Ladakh and a Corps deployed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as also in Counter Insurgency Operations area in the northeast.