NCC plans academies in northeastern states

The National Cadet Corps (NCC), India's military youth movement in schools and colleges, has proposed to set up training academies in all the northeastern states to meet the aspirations of Indian youth.

"We have submitted a proposal to the state governments in the region for setting up NCC academies. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio have accepted our proposal for setting up the academy in their states," Major-General R.K. Sharma, NCC's additional director general, said Thursday.

In Assam, the academy campuses will come up in Silchar and Jorhat, while the Nagaland government has proposed to allot land in Dimapur district.

Maj-Gen Sharma said, the group commanders of the NCC based in the other northeastern states -- Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur -- would also submit proposals to these governments and seek land for the academy.

Sharma said one academy requires six to eight acres of land to set up facilities, including shooting ranges, lecture halls, obstacle courses, besides for imparting state-of-art training on disaster management in the region. Each academy is estimated to be built at the cost of Rs.8 crore to Rs.10 crore.

"We are hopeful that the other state governments in the region would help us to establish these training academies," said the NCC official, who chaired a three-day Group Commanders' Conference of NCC, North East Region, which ended Wednesday.

Sharma said the conference stressed on the need to take up with the state governments in the region inclusion of NCC as an elective subject in higher secondary schools.

He said the NCC course will improve students' personality, communication skills and other courses will help cadets get more practical knowledge and chances of getting into defence forces.