Shortage of officers? NCC has the answer

With the Indian armed forces facing a shortage of over 13,000 officers, the 30-lakh-strong National Cadet Corps seems to be the best bet to fill up vacant seats in the military academies.

"While the armed forces training institutes find it difficult to attract new talent to fill up its seats and go under-subscribed, the NCC has been religiously sending its cadets and filling up its allotted quota of seats in all the military academies year in and year out," NCC Director General Lieutenant General Prakash S Chaudhary told PTI.

Finding success in motivating its cadets to join the armed forces, the NCC has been efficiently filling up the quota reserved for cadets with 'C' Certificates in the academies of the army, navy and air force.

"NCC cadets have been filling up all the seats allotted to them in Indian Military Academy, Officers Training Academy, Naval Academy and Air Force Academy. In fact, NCC cadets have been joining the courses at these academies through the general category too, apart from the NCC quota," Chaudhary said.

As per the data of the last three years, NCC cadets have been over-subscribing the allotted seats in IMA.

From 2005 to 2007, NCC cadets filled up the allotted quota of 64 seats out of the total 250 seats. That apart, IMA had seven, 31 and 16 cadets in the general quota in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively.

During the same period, NCC cadets filled up almost all the 100 seats allotted to them in OTA. While, all 100 allotted seats were filled up by NCC cadets in 2005, in 2006 and 2007, they got into 93 and 98 of the 100 seats respectively.

Recording success in its efforts to inspire cadets for a career in the navy and air force, the NCC has filled up its allotted quota of seats in both NA and AFA too.

In both these academies, 10 per cent of the total seats were reserved for NCC cadets. The total number of seats, though, varied every year, sources said.

At the NA, four NCC cadets joined the officers' course in 2007. The NCC also sent seven and three cadets to NA in 2006 and 2005 respectively.

The AFA, in turn, had 11 cadets in 2007, 10 in 2006 and again 11 in 2005, thereby filling up the 10 per cent quota reserved for them.

"While the three services have been complaining that they do not get the right candidates to join the forces as officers, here is a pool of talent already trained in officer like qualities," Chaudhary said.

Both IMA and OTA had recorded dismal overall recruitments this year, with seats going abegging in both the academies.
 
The IMA's 124th course for men officers that began in January 2008 had only 86 recruits for the total 250 vacancies.

The OTA's Short Service Commission course for Engineering Branch could attract only 11 recruits for the 107 seats up for grabs, in sectors such as information technology, computer and mechanical, production and civil Engineering.

Only six women and five men joined the OTA's engineering branch course, whereas the vacancies for them were 52 and 55 respectively. The five seats in the architecture course had no takers at all.

The NDA too had such a pitiful recruitment record this year in summer course this April, when only 190 of the total 300 seats could be filled up.

Meanwhile, the NCC succeeded in completing a pilot project to motivate and train 270 cadets - most from rural and semi-urban areas - to join the armed forces.

The training camp, aiming to improve the cadets' overall personality and making him fit for a career in the armed forces, ended on June 20.

"The NCC is surely taking its role seriously and is working towards becoming an answer to the recruitment troubles faced by the military academies," Chaudhary said.