Suicides by soldiers in combat areas worrying Army

Chennai, Mar 25 (UNI) The Army is worried about suicides by soldiers in combat areas and low intensity combat regions, Lt Gen Anup S Jamwal, Adjutant General (AG), Army Headquarters, has said.

Interacting with retired officers at the Area Offiers Mess here last evening, he said the army has decided to adopt a psychological approach to deal with the issue.

He said the army was also keen on addressing the problems faced by ex-servicemen. More ex-servicemen rallies would be taken out across the country and their problems would be redressed, he added.

Lt Gen Jamwal said the concept of ''veteran hostels'' had been widely welcomed and extremely useful to the retired soldiers in the country. They found these hostels more useful, he added.

He said the army was also aiming at consolidating 227 polyclinics, set up across the country and to closely monitor the medical benefit schemes to ensure that ex-servicemen derived maximum benefit from them.

To address the problem of shortage of medicines in the polyclinics as well as military hospitals, a new plan was being drawn up, under which, medicines would be supplied by the drug companies directly to the polyclinics and hospitals from next month onwards, Lt Gen Jamwal said.

He said the army has decided not to set up any more army schools in Metropolitan cities after establishing the last school for the metros in this metropolis.

The army school, to come up near Military hospital at Nandambakkam, would be built at a cost of Rs 6.3 crore and the works are expected to commence next month. The school would have modern facilities and classes till plus two, he added.

UNI WS VV PK RN1439