Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 18, 2026

Maintenance Command

Maintenance Command is a command of the Indian Air Force. It was raised as Maintenance Group at Chakeri in Kanpur in 1950. In 1955, it was designated as Maintenance Command. Its current headquarters is located at Vayusena Nagar in Nagpur (Maharashtra); it handles the repair, overhaul and maintenance of all aircraft, helicopters and other equipment. MC has about nine Base Repair Depots taking care of the overhaul and maintenance of various types of aircraft.

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Maintenance Command
Emblem of the Maintenance Command
Founded26 January 1955
CountryIndia
BranchIndian Air Force
TypeSupport
HeadquartersNagpur, Maharashtra
MottosSarvada Gagenecharet
(Sanskrit: Always Flying in the Sky)
Commanders
Air Officer Commanding-in-ChiefAir Marshal Yalla Umesh
Air Marshal Hemant Sharma, AVSM, VSM, handing over the aircraft HPT-32 to Narayan Ramdas Iyer at Raman Science Centre on 15 December 2017 source ↗

Maintenance Command is a command of the Indian Air Force. It was raised as Maintenance Group at Chakeri in Kanpur in 1950. In 1955, it was designated as Maintenance Command. Its current headquarters is located at Vayusena Nagar in Nagpur (Maharashtra); it handles the repair, overhaul and maintenance of all aircraft, helicopters and other equipment. MC has about nine Base Repair Depots taking care of the overhaul and maintenance of various types of aircraft.

History

The Maintenance Command was established on 26 January 1955. Group Captain Harjinder Singh was the first Commanding Officer (CO). Harjinder Singh, a legendary engineering officer with many firsts to his credit was at the helm of the command until his retirement in 1963. The appointment of the CO was upgraded to Air Officer Commanding (AOC) in 1958 when Singh was promoted to Air Commodore.1 It was further upgraded to Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) when he was promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal. In 1971, the appointment of AOC-in-C was upgraded to the three-star rank of Air Marshal.2

Organisation

The command has several types of Base Repair Depots (BRD) (for overhaul, maintenance) and Equipment Depots (ED) (storage of spares, equipment, sub-systems). They are categorised by their specialisation and functions. These units are commanded by an officer of rank Air Commodre.3

List of Base Repair Depots (BRD)
Unit Location Function Ref
1 Base Repair Depot (Aircraft) Kanpur An-32 overhaul 3
3 Base Repair Depot (Aircraft & Engine) Chandigarh Mi-17, Mi-26, Mi-35 overhaul 34
4 Base Repair Depot (Engine) Kanpur R 29 engine (MiG-23/27) + M53 engine (Mirage 2000) 5
5 Base Repair Depot (Aircraft) Sulur HS 748, Trainer aircraft overhaul 6
7 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Tughlakabad Missiles, Radars, etc. 7
8 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Avadi 8
9 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Pune 9
11 Base Repair Depot (Aircraft) Ojhar MiG-23, MiG-29 overhaul 10
12 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Nafdarjung Parachute and safety system 11
13 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Palam 12
14 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Borjhar Radar maintenance 13
15 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Vadsar Communication equipment 14
16 Base Repair Depot (Systems) Palam Parachute and safety system 15
List of Equipment Depots (ED)3
Unit Location Function Ref
23 Equipment Depot Avadi 16
24 Equipment Depot Manauri Spare storage of Jaguar, Avro, C-295 and Dornier aircraft; Chetak, Cheetah and Dhruv helicopters and RPA 1718
25 Equipment Depot Devlali Spare storage of MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-27 and Su-30MKI 19
26 Equipment Depot Bangalore Rotables of Jaguar, Cheetah, Chetak, Avro, Kiran; line spares of Jaguar and engines 20
27 Equipment Depot Tughlakabad 21
28 Equipment Depot Amla Armament and ammunition 22
29 Equipment Depot Kanpur Supplies parts to 1 and 4 BRD 23
41 (Mini) Equipment Depot Bidar Spares of MiG-25 24
42 (Mini) Equipment Depot Gwalior Provides support to 40 Wing IAF, Maharajpur AFS 25
43 (Mini) Equipment Depot Hakimpet
44 (Mini) Equipment Depot Dundingal
45 (Mini) Equipment Depot Agra Spares support for Ilyushin Il-76 and Ilyushin Il-78MKI based in Agra AFS. 26
49 (Mini) Equipment Depot N/A

There are other units which are based under Maintenance Command3

  • Air Force Liaison Establishments (functions as an interface between IAF and HAL)
  • 31 Movement Control Unit (MCU) at Palam AFS [previously Passenger and Freight (P&F) Forwarding Section]
  • 32 Movement Control Unit (MCU) at Terminal 1 Mumbai Airport [previously Air Freight & Passenger (Mov) Unit]
  • 33 Movement Control Unit (MCU) at Guwahati Airport

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief

List of Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief
Rank Name From To
Group Captain Harjinder Singh 25 January 195527 23 March 1958
Air commodore 24 March 1958 14 May 1959
Air Vice Marshal 15 May 1959 2 August 1963
Om Prakash Mehra 3 August 196327 17 February 1967
Hirendra Nath Chatterjee 18 February 196727 31 March 1968
Hari Chand Dewan 1 April 196827 23 March 1971
Air Marshal Gurbachan Singh 24 March 197127 31 March 1973
Anand Ramdas Pandit 1 April 197327 29 February 1976
Idris Hasan Latif 1 March 197627 19 May 1977
Devaiah Subia 20 May 197727 31 July 1978
Jafar Zaheer 24 August 197827 19 January 1979
Hemant Ramkrishna Chitnis 22 February 197927 29 February 1980
Chandra Kant Viswanath Gole 18 April 198027 13 January 1981
Kanwar Iqbal Singh Chhabra 14 January 198127 31 January 1985
Satish Chandra Lal 1 February 198527 31 December 1982
Madan Lal Sethi 1 January 198627 31 October 1987
Kuldip Singh Bhatia 1 November 198727 30 April 1989
Sibaprasad Chakrabarti 1 May 198927 31 January 1991
Indrakanty Gopala Krishna 1 February 199127 30 June 1993
Rajamani Ramamurthy 1 July 199327 31 December 1994
Ramesh Chandra Bajpai 1 January 199527 31 October 1996
Ghanshyam Gururani 1 November 199627 31 July 1997
Shanti Swaroop Gupta 1 August 199727 30 April 2002
Dinesh Chandra Nigam 1 May 200227 30 April 2004
Vijay Adhyutrao Patkar 6 July 200427 30 April 2005
Kirti Shekhar Chaturvedi 16 May 200527 31 March 2007
Jayant Satchidanand Apte 2 April 200727 30 November 2007
Gautam Nayyar 1 December 200727 31 March 2009
Pramod Vasant Athawale 1 April 200927 31 August 2011
Jagdish Chandra 1 September 201127 30 June 2013
Packiriswamy Kanakaraj 1 July 201327 30 November 2014
Jagjeet Singh 1 December 201427 31 March 2016
Pankaj Aneja 1 April 201627 31 May 2017
Hemant Sharma 1 June 201727 31 January 2019
Raj Karan Singh Shera 1 February 201927 31 December 2019
Shashiker Choudhary 1 January 202027 31 May 2022
Vibhas Pande 14 June 202227 31 May 202427
Vijay Kumar Garg 1 June 202427 30 December 202527
Yalla Umesh 1 December 202527 Incumbent
See also

See also

References

References

  1. "THE ROLE OF MAINTENANCE COMMAND IN THE IAF" (PDF). pibarchive.nic.in. 17 March 1956.
  2. "Maintenance Command". www.bharat-rakshak.com.
  3. "Maintenance Command - IAF". indianairforce.nic.in. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  4. "Indigenised spares keep Russian origin IAF chopper, transport fleet flying: 3 BRD". The Indian Express. 18 August 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  5. "4 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  6. "5 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
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  10. "11 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  11. "12 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  12. "13 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  13. "14 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  14. "15 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  15. "16 Base Repair Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  16. "23 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  17. "24 Equipment Depot, Manauri to act as stock holding depot for planes". The Times of India. 25 July 2023. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  18. "24 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  19. "25 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  20. "26 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  21. "27 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  22. "28 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  23. "29 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  24. "41 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  25. "42 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  26. "45 Equipment Depot, Indian Air Force - Database". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  27. "Maintenance Command - BRF". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 8 May 2023.