Flight Lieutenant Bhaskar Prasad Das (7890) of the Technical Engineering has been serving as Officer-in-Charge of the Goblin aeroengine overhaul line at a Base Repair Depot since January, 1965.

In 1968, Air Headquarters entered into contract with Messrs Rolls Royce Limited of the United Kingdom for reconditioning 50 Goblin engines. For this purpose, the Air Force was to despatch 55 life expired engines to them. Flight Lieutenant Das, through his intimate knowledge of Goblin Engines, not only enabled the Depot to survey and select the best engines to meet this commitment but by excellent coordination and leadership, completed the assigned task in record time.

The reconditioning cost of each engine was fixed by Messrs Rolls Royce Limited, U.K., at ﾃつ｣ 10,000 with the proviso that in case the condition of any engine was not upto their expectations they would have an option to enhance the cost of reconditioning. Under this clause, the company subsequently demanded an additional ﾃつ｣ 250 per engine. Flight Lieutenant Das, who had been sent to the U.K. for a course, was asked to undertake a scrutiny of this demand of the manufacturers. Making excellent use of his intimate knowledge and experience on Goblin Engines Flight Lieutenant Das persuaded the manufacturers to revert their original quotation and so saved the Government foreign exchange of ﾃつ｣ 42,500.

The manufacturers also wanted to declare all the special packing cases, in which engines were received from India, to be beyond economical repair and fixed the cost of new packing at ﾃつ｣ 300.00 per case. Again Flight Lieutenant Das was able to prove to the Company that only 12 of these cases were beyond economical repair. He thereby saved another ﾃつ｣ 10,000.

The outstanding professional skill and devotion to duty shown by Flight Lieutenant Bhaskar Prasad Das are of special significance to the Air Force. For these, he is awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal.