Indian Army soldiers will have their DNA profile stored in a data bank under a project launched by the Armed Forces Medical Services that will facilitate identification of bodies during any operation, attack or mishap.


Defence Minister A K Antony in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today said a pilot project is in progress at Armed Forces Medical College, Pune to conduct DNA profile of soldiers and develop necessary protocol for identifying them from their body tissues. The strength of the Indian Army is around 1.1 million.

"The objectives of the project are to devise a protocol for collection, preservation and transportation of blood samples of the soldiers, maintain absolute accuracy in personal information and tagging of specimen and to devise protocol for procedure for identifying service personnel from any fragment of body tissue," he said.