Commander-in-Chief, Andaman and Nicobar Command
Commander-in-Chief, Andaman and Nicobar Command is the head of the Andaman and Nicobar Command, the first and only Tri-service theater command of the Indian Armed Forces, based at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India.
The CINCAN is a Three-star rank officer from the three Services in rotation. The CINCAN reports directly to the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in New Delhi. He is assisted by the Chief of Staff of the command, a two-star officer and the commanders of each component - one-star officers.
The current CINCAN is Lieutenant General Manoj Pande, AVSM, VSM who took command on 1 June 2020 as the 15th CINCAN.
History
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands became a Union territory of India in 1956. The first military unit on the islands was the naval base INS Jarawa which was commissioned in 1964. The naval establishments were under the command of the Eastern Naval Command during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. In 1978, INS Kardip was commissioned as a Forward operating base.In 1981, the establishments came under the newly-created Fortress Andaman & Nicobar. The Commander was titled Fortress Commander Andaman & Nicobar, a Two star appointment tenanted by a Rear Admiral.
With the operationalisation of the A & N Command as a unified theatre command on October 2001, Vice Admiral Arun Prakash, took over as the First Commander-in-Chief of the unified command.
List of Commanders-in-Chief
The following is a list of Commanders-in-Chief of the A&N command.| No | Name | Branch | Appointment Date | Left Office | References |
| 1 | Vice Admiral Arun Prakash | 8 October 2001 | 30 December 2002 | ||
| 2 | Vice Admiral O. P. Bansal | 15 January 2003 | 30 September 2003 | ||
| 3 | Lieutenant General Bhupender Singh Thakur | 1 October 2003 | 13 January 2005 | ||
| 4 | Lieutenant General Aditya Singh AVSM & bar | 14 January 2005 | 27 February 2006 | ||
| 5 | Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh | 28 February 2006 | 25 October 2006 | ||
| 6 | Air Marshal Packiam Paul Rajkumar | 2 December 2006 | 31 December 2007 | ||
| 7 | Air Marshal Sadashivan Radhakrishnan | 1 January 2008 | 30 September 2008 | ||
| 8 | Vice Admiral Vijay Shankar | 30 September 2008 | 30 September 2009 | ||
| 9 | Vice Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi | 30 September 2009 | 28 December 2010 | ||
| 10 | Lieutenant General N C Marwah | 1 January 2011 | 31 October 2012 | ||
| 11 | Air Marshal Pramon Kumar Roy | 2 November 2012 | 30 June 2014 | ||
| 12 | Vice Admiral Pradeep Kumar Chatterjee | 1 July 2014 | 28 February 2016 | ||
| 13 | Vice Admiral Bimal Verma | 29 February 2016 | 1 December 2019 | ||
| 14 | Lieutenant General Podali Shankar Rajeshwar | 1 December 2019 | 31 May 2020 | ||
| 15 | Lieutenant General Manoj Pande | 1 June 2020 | Incumbent |
See Also
- Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee
- Chief of Integrated Defence Staff
- Andaman and Nicobar Command