The central government’s Agnipath scheme, which reforms the way most soldiers will be recruited by the military, will provide further avenues for the members of the National Cadet Corps (NCC), its Director General, Lt Gen Gurbirpal Singh, said here today.
Lt Gen Singh is on a two-day visit to oversee training activities of the NCC. He also felicitated 20 NCC cadets at a function here today.
In a major reform, rank and file soldiers will be inducted into the army only for an initial four-year period, with only a percentage of each batch offered long-term employment by the military. This is a big and controversial change for the many millions of army hopefuls looking to make a long-term career in the armed forces.
Speaking to reporters today, Lt Gen Singh said, “Those NCC cadets who want to pursue a second career after the defence forces can join, serve their duration and follow a different career in case they want.”
“The aim of the NCC is also to provide a condition for cadets to join the uniformed forces,” he added.
Meanwhile, after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Director General said that the NCC is back into the full swing of its activities now and he was satisfied with the performance of the regional directorate in all the NCC activities.
He also paid a visit to Governor Satya Pal Malik and met Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui and discussed the state of the NCC in Meghalaya with the latter.
Lt Gen Singh expressed happiness with the level of recruitment and said that, recently, two NCC companies were upgraded to battalion status.
The NCC chief also spoke about other matters, such as the Puneet Sagar Abhiyan, which is turning into the world’s biggest movement to clean water bodies of plastic waste, and Seema Darshan, where cadets get to see what life is like for soldiers defending the country’s borders.
The NCC is also a great example of national integration in practice, he said, as, through its Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat camps, NCC cadets from all across the country come together and learn about the different cultures and traditions of India’s people.
