New Delhi, Sep 30 Lt. Gen. P. C. Bhardwaj will Thursday take over as the Indian Army's new vice chief.

Bhardwaj, who currently heads the Udhampur-based Northern Command that guards Jammu and Kashmir, will replace Lt. Gen. Nobel Thamburaj, who retired Wednesday.

"The new vice chief will take charge tomorrow (Thursday)," an army official said.

Bhardwaj has been appointed the vice chief bypassing the senior-most three-star general, Lt. Gen. V. K. Singh, who is tipped to become the Indian Army chief when incumbent Gen. Deepak Kapoor retires in March 2010. Thus, for six months, Singh would technically be reporting to an officer who is his junior.

In the normal scheme of things, Singh would have, in all probability, become the vice chief when Thamburaj retired. However, the defence ministry accepted Kapoor's recommendation that henceforth, the vice chief serve a two-year term.

Bhardwaj has been the Northern Command chief since March, when he took over from Lt. Gen. H. S. Panag.

Prior to heading the Northern Command, Bhardwaj commanded the Leh-based 14 Corps that guards the frontiers with China and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, as also the Siachen glacier, the world's highest battlefield.

Bhardwaj has vast experience in terror-hit Kashmir, having been the Brigadier General Staff of the Nagrota-based 16 Corps in 2000-01, when militancy was at its peak and infiltration was at its highest level.

He has also commanded the counter-insurgency Delta Force in the Doda region of Jammu.

An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, the Indian Military Academy and the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Bhardwaj was commissioned into the first battalion of the Parachute Regiment in June 1970.

He has also received training at the Special Forces School at Fort Bragg in the US.

A recipient of the Vir Chakra during the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Bhardwaj has commanded the elite Parachute Brigade and was the defence attache to Myanmar from
1994 to 1997. (IANS)