Women outnumber men in taking NDA exam in Punjab, 5 for every one male

The NDA exam in Punjab was held in two shifts; of 16 centres, 13 were especially for women candidates and only three general NDA centres had been set up in Ludhiana

Ludhiana Three months after the Supreme Court, in a landmark order on August 18, 2021, opened the doors of the National Defence Academy (NDA) to women cadets, the fairer sex outnumbered men in taking the exam by some distance in Punjab.

The Supreme Court had allowed women to take the NDA exam in August this year; the NDA exam in Punjab, held in Ludhiana, saw women outnumber men by a huge ratio. (HT File)

Five women appeared for every men who took the exam in the state; of 6,355 who completed the exam in both the shifts, 5,208 were woman and 1,147 were men. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) had conducted the exam across the country on Sunday.

OP Kapoor superintendent, Ludhiana municipal corporation (MC), one of those charged with conducting the exams, said, “Ludhiana was the only centre for the exam in Punjab. Students from far-flung and a few from other states, including Himachal Pradesh, took the exam in Ludhiana.”

HT had previously reported on October 30 that overall, across the country, a third of the candidates who had applied for the NDA exam were women.

“A few candidates didn’t appear in the second shift as they just wanted to get an idea of the exams or they didn’t perform as expected,” said Aditya Dachalwal, additional commissioner, Ludhiana MC.

Arpal Kaur, Class-12 medical student from Jaito, Faridkot said that she always wanted to serve the Indian Army and now since the girls have been allowed in NDA, she had taken the exam with great hope and energy. Her father Harpreet Singh said that he was planning to send her daughter abroad, but it will be better if her daughter got the chance to serve the nation.

To stop candidates from resorting to unfair means, mobile phones, electronic Gadgets, watches, cardboards, etc were banned and jammers were deployed at the exam centres. To avoid physical touch, frisking of the candidates was avoided but face masks were made mandatory for them. Candidates had also been asked to bring their own sanitisers in transparent bottles.