Squadron Leader Uma Shankar Mishra has been on the posted strength of No. 17 Wing since 06 Dec 76 as Chief Engineering Officer.

Squadron Leader Mishra is an extremely devoted and dedicated officer with a professional ability of very high order. During his tenure as C Eng O at No. 17 Wing, he consistently and effectively used his initiative to bring out some very creditable improve ments in the functioning of the technical services and facilities located there.

It was mainly owing to his untiring efforts that the serviceability of the Canberra fleet improved from 28% in 1976 to 39% in 1978 and that of the Dakota fleet from 52% in 1976 to 56% in 1978. This was achieved by his personal intervention in the clearing of AOGs, effective snag analysis and rectification work and streamlining in the technical procedures and practices. It is indeed praiseworthy that during this period no accidents/incidents were caused by technical or maintenance lapses. Squadron Leader Mishra was the guiding and driving force in achieving this high rate of serviceability.

Over and above these major achievements. Squadron Leader Mishra's devoted and painstaking efforts ensured MT serviceability of over 90% and putting back on road several vehicles such as the Coles Crane, Class III Crash Tenders and several tractors and aeroplane tugs which had been off road for long periods of time. With his highly developed technical bent of mind he was also responsible for several innovations at the station level like the adoption of S-24 rockets for Canberras, the fitment of a Liberator bomb bay tank for long range ferries on Dakotas and the fabrication of a device for detecting faults in underground cables.

For his exemplary leadership, dedication to duty, admirable capacity of management and professional competence, Rashtrapati is pleased to award Vishisht Seva Medal to Squadron Leader Uma Shankar Mishra.