NEW DELHI: For the first time, a group of 20 women army and air force officers from Afghanistan will be trained at the Officers’ Training Academy in Chennai. The group, who were given a celebratory send-off by the Indian ambassador in Kabul, Manpreet Vohra, will go through a rigorous training module in India. They left Kabul on Tuesday.

This comes on the heels of yet another group of only women entrepreneurs who were sent by the Afghan Government to India to participate in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad last week.

The current batch of officers and officials from the Afghan defence ministry will be given a preparatory training program at the OTA. They will go back to pick a fresh batch of women officers who will come in for full training modules from 2018.

“We are expanding our armed forces and women will play a bigger role,” said Shaida Abdali, Afghan ambassador to India.

At any given time, there are about 300 Afghan officers being trained in India, the largest number at the IMA in Dehradun.

Afghan media quoted the Indian Embassy in Kabul as saying, “For the first time, a batch of 20 Lady officers from the Afghan Army and Afghan Air Force departed for a training module at Officers Training Academy, Chennai.”

This comes a day after Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani hailed India’s contribution in various sectors of the country. Emphasising that India is a good partner, President Ghani insisted that the Afghan government is committed to further strengthening bilateral cooperation with India.

The President made the remarks during a meeting with the members of the Lower and Upper Houses of the Parliament to brief the lawmakers regarding his recent foreign trips and interactions, Khaama Press reported.

Dismissing misperceptions regarding the presence and role of India in Afghanistan, President Ghani said the Afghan government has no hidden deal with any country and no foreign state will be allowed to use the Afghan soil against the neighbours of the country. Kabul, he said, has shared interests with New Delhi and the Afghan government will continue to use the economic opportunities provided by India for the development of the country.

Pakistan has long been opposing the presence of India in Afghanistan but Afghan officials have repeatedly rejected these protests and even the United States has endorsed the constructive role of New Delhi in the rehabilitation of Afghanistan.

India has played a vital role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime and has invested over $2 billion in various projects. In 2017, India pledged an extra $1 billion including 116 small development projects as well as a new dam in Afghanistan.