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1 Tactical Air Center


Date Raised : 1957-04-01 Location : Jalandhar
1 Air Task Force was established in Aug 51 to operate in conjunction with XI Corps, the first Corps in the Indian Army. It came about as a result of the deficiencies experienced in coordinating air operations with land operations during J & K Ops in 1947-48. The name was subsequently changed to No. 1 Tactical (Air Support) Group in Jan 55 and finally, to No. 1 Tactical Air Centre on 01 Mar 57. It was the first of the Unitss set up for Joint Air/Land Warfare and thus, marked the beginning of Air/Land Warfare organization in India. In fact, a detachment of the Units set up Adv HQ, WAC with Western Command and manned it till it was established in 1959.
Unit previously existed as 1 TASG

Commanding Officers


01 Mar 57 - 05 Sep 57
Group Captain
Homi Shapurji Ratnagar
1588 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

15 Oct 57 - 09 Jun 59
Group Captain
Murat Singh Aulakh
1660 GD(O)
CO
Jallandhar

10 Jun 59 - 01 Feb 60
Group Captain
Ramachandra Balaji Godkhindi
1760 GD(O)
CO
Jallandhar

02 Feb 60 - 29 Jun 60
Group Captain
Zafar Ahmed Shah
1805 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

14 Jul 60 - 13 Aug 62
Group Captain
Tekchand Gopaldas Kelly
1753 GD(O)
CO
Jallandhar

14 Aug 62 - 14 Jan 64
Group Captain
Solomon Purushottam
1928 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

15 Jan 64 - 14 Feb 67
Group Captain
Gurbachan Singh Bhullar
1870 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

17 Apr 67 - 28 Jun 67
Group Captain
Soli Cursetji Kaikobad
2119 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

15 Jul 67 - 16 Aug 69
Group Captain
John Frederick Shukla
2458 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

17 Aug 69 - 14 Jul 70
Group Captain
Randhir Singh
2135 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

15 Jul 70 - 04 Sep 72
Group Captain
Jagdish Chandra Sengupta
3657 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

08 Sep 72 - 23 Sep 73
Group Captain
Prakashnarain Jainarain Mehra
4037 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

11 Mar 74 - 05 Jan 76
Group Captain
Robert Arnold Weir
3881 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

06 Jan 76 - 23 Apr 78
Group Captain
Subhash Chander Virmani
4097 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

24 Apr 78 - 03 May 79
Group Captain
Ranjit Singh Bedi
5120 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

04 May 79 - 04 Oct 81
Group Captain
Bhagat Singh Bakhshi
4597 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

05 Oct 81 - 31 Jul 85
Group Captain
Krishna Chandra Misra
4255 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

14 Oct 85 - 30 Nov 88
Group Captain
Dinkar Shantaram Jatar
6521 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

01 Dec 88 - 09 Feb 92
Group Captain
Surjit Singh
8148 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

27 Apr 92 - 31 May 93
Group Captain
Jagjit Singh Ghuman
10123 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

23 Aug 93 - 31 Mar 95
Group Captain
Gurdeep Singh
8695 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

23 Aug 95 - 31 Oct 96
Group Captain
Rajinder Pal Singh
10601 GD(P)
CO
Jallandhar

07 Jan 97 - 10 Jul 98
Group Captain
P Singh

CO
Jallandhar

30 Sep 98 - 31 Aug 00
Group Captain
Digvijay Singh
13784 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

09 Apr 01 - 27 Apr 04
Group Captain
Vinod Kumar Chopra
14563 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

28 Apr 04 - 13 Jun 06
Group Captain
Pradeep Kumar Sharan
15210 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

14 Jun 06 - 02 Dec 07
Group Captain
Manas Chatterjee
17356 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

03 Dec 07 - 31 Jul 08
Group Captain
Rakesh Anand
15873 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

18 Aug 08 - 28 Feb 10
Group Captain
Pragat Singh Gill
15055 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

15 Mar 10 - 25 Jun 11
Group Captain
Surender Dhankhar
18295 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar

18 Jul 11 - 01 Sep 13
Group Captain
Sharad Subhash Sharma
19866 F(P)
CO
Jallandhar
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Note: All the data available here is publicly available in the Gazette of India, published by the Indian Government, or from public domain sources, press releases about Awards and Right-To-Information (RTI) Requests. Additionally data shared by veterans is added to the page with permission. No data with respect to serving officers below the rank of AVM is displayed. Information in Gazette of India and Award citations and photographs as released by the Indian Air Force are the only details displayed.