Vice Admiral Lochan Singh Pathania took over as Chief Hydrographer to the Govt. of India on 01 Feb 24. The Flag Officer has naval career spanning about four decades with nearly two decades onboard various ships.

Commissioned in the Executive Branch of the Indian Navy in 1990, he specialised in Hydrography and has undertaken hydrographic survey in all parts of India and was part of maiden foreign coorporation survey of Oman in 1993. He also participated in surveys of North Sea and Southern Coast of UK onboard Royal Navy ships.

He has commanded INS Darshak and INS Sandhayak. During his command he carried out hydrographic surveys across the entire stretch of A&N Islands and East Coast from Sand Heads to Rameshwaram including challenging task of data collection for IMBL arbitration and for production of new chart in Sundarbans delta.

In ashore capacity he has held various important positions as Interviewing Officer (I0) & Deputy President of Naval Selection Board, Principal Director (Hydrography) at NHQ, Officer-in-Charge, National Hydrographic Office (NHO) and Joint Chief Hydrographer.

He is graduate of Naval Academy and Alumni of International Maritime Academy (IMA), Trieste, Italy, Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), Wellington and College of Defence Management (CDM), Secunderabad. He holds a Masters degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras and Masters of Management Studies (MMS) from Osmania University.

He is married to Mrs. Chanda Pathania, who is a homemaker. He has two daughters, one is postgraduate in Pyschology & Arts/Animation and younger is post graduate in Commerce & Buddhist studies.