DR VIJAYPAT SINGHANIA, a renowned industrialist and an adventurist would now, soon be seen in a different role—a trainer! The National Cadet Corps (NCC) has sought the help of the world record holder in microlight flying to help its cadets in adventure sport-hot air balloon.
Confirming this, the Director General (NCC) Lt-Gen M C Bhandari said the NCC was adding new dimension in its adventure and for this it would take help from the pioneering Dr Singhania in the field. Lt-Gen Bhandari said the NCC was already having the best of adventure sports including water rafting, deep sea diving. It may be mentioned that Lt Gen Bhandari during his recent meeting with DR Singhania in New Delhi had invited the latter to Bhopal for the inauguration of hot air balloon competition for the NCC cadets to be organised soon.
“NCC has always encouraged mountaineering, water rafting, deep sea diving and adventure sports,” he said.
Lt-Gen Bhandari said even NCC has touched every body’s life irrespective of what he or she has become in life. Naming a few he said, “Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Olympian silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore, Kiran Bedi, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj and many others.” “Our 5 crore pilot dream project, the NCC Nagar will certainly encourage people to join the NCC. We have always been ahead in every sphere of life whether it is disaster management during the Tsunami or social awareness programs like Aids awareness, polio eradication, literacy or related issues,” he added. About increasing demand of NCC among girls in the country, he said that in immediate future the NCC has planned to increase the strength of girls by about 2 lakh. Currently, the NCC strength in the country is 4 per cent of the eligible cadets. He further stated that 30 per cent of the strength in the NCC is of girl cadets. In UP alone 17.5 per cent, while in Uttaranchal 14.5 per cent. In the next 15-20 years one can expect the strength of boys and girls to the ratio of 50:50.
Many young boys and girls get into the NCC through the GB Pant waste management institute in Katara.
{{/usCountry}}Many young boys and girls get into the NCC through the GB Pant waste management institute in Katara.
{{/usCountry}}The main objective of the NCC is to inculcate good qualities among the cadets.
“This is evident from the fact that a large number of cadets make it to high profile professions,” he said.
“There is no dearth of finances, infrastructure and weapons with the Defence Ministry backing our needs. There are talks of a separate NCC directorate at Uttaranchal with six acres of land already allotted to us. Now, with our efforts coupled with the Central and State Government,” said the DG.
Apart from this, governments of 30 to 40 states around India like Orissa, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir (Pithoragarh and Chamoli areas) have also allotted land to us,” he said adding, “We are the largest youth organisation in the world, with the Army, the Navy and the Air Force combined together consisting of people from the age of 13-26. Our cadets keep going to UK, Russia, Vietnam, B’desh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, NZ, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Rwanda and Botswana under the youth exchange programme. The strength of the cadets in UP and Uttaranchal alone is 1,41,555 with 1,20,495 from UP and 2160 from Uttaranchal. More girls are always encouraged to join us, their strength in UP soaring to 17.5 per cent and Uttaranchal being at 14 per cent. The girls are called the junior wing cadets while the boys are called the Junior division cadets. There are 21 NCC universities in UP and Uttaranchal with 16 being in UP and 5 in Uttaranchal.
On a question regarding the states of UP contributing maximum NCC cadets, Bhandari replied, “Lucknow, Allahabad and Meerut”. The General said, “J&K and north eastern states will have 100 per cent grant from the Central government from 2006. Apart from this, Sahara India contributes Rs 1 cr every year to NCC”.