NCC to scale up corps strength to 15 lakh

Bangalore, May 12: National Cadet Corps (NCC) would increase the cadet strength from the present 1.3 million to 1.5 million from the next academic year, covering more than 5700 schools in waiting list, NCC Director General Lt. Gen. Prakash S Chaudhary said today.

"There have been 5716 schools and colleges waiting to start NCC groups, which included 369 in Karnataka alone. We will clear this waiting list soon," he said.

Speaking to Newspersons, the NCC Chief said the Corps was also thinking of reducing Senior Division period from the present four years to two years, which could be extendable by one year in special cases. "A reorganisation of Senior Division is needed. We have felt that there was no need to keep the cadets in training for so long in view of increasing pressure of studies in the recent years. This will also help include at least 80,000 more children every year," he said.

Gen Chaudhary said that NCC would begin a new career counselling programme and send senior cadets to rural areas to train youth in taking up career in the armed forces and other jobs. "The main problem with the children from villages is that they lack communication skills. Our counsellors will put in extra effort to help them," he said.

The counselling in Special Services Branch, under NCC, would also be revamped to create suitable environment and motivate youth from the NCC to take up career in the armed forces, he said.

In a bid to weaken suport insurgent groups and motivate youth to join the main stream in the North Eastern states, NCC would reach out to more youth by increasing the cadet strength and also improve the infrastructure NCC facilities in those states.

Gen Chaudhary said that NCC was going ahead in roping in more players from the private sector in its Public-Private endeavours to extend additional scholarships to cadets. "We have Sahara contributing in this regard and I met officials of Infosys seeking a grant to extend more scholarships," he added.

UNI