NCC readies for Republic Day parade
By IANSWednesday, January 5, 2011
NEW DELHI - Marching in perfect unison to drumbeats as they braved the cold snap, NCC cadets from across the country are going through their paces at their annual camp here ahead of the Jan 26 Republic Day parade.
Around 2,000 selected cadets are attending the Republic Day Camp at the National Cadet Corps grounds in Delhi Cantonment. Of them, some 100 will be specially trained to march in the Republic Day parade at Rajpath.
“This year we have 1,950 cadets taking part in the Republic Day Camp. Of them, nearly 640 are girls, said NCC Director General Lt. Gen. Raj Kumar Karawal at a media preview Wednesday.
The NCC, a tri-services organisation comprising of Army, Navy and Air Force units, engages the youth from all across the country in programmes of youth development and social service, and assisting the armed forces in a variety of non-combat tasks.
“The year 2010 was special for the NCC as we had cadet volunteers at the Commonwealth Games and former NCC cadets winning medals at the Games. In fact, our cadets were also active in rescue and relief operations in disasters such as the oil spill along the Mumbai coast, Karawal added.
Nearly 2,700 cadet volunteers took part in the Commonwealth Games, held in the national capital in October 2010, for tasks of security management, traffic control, ceremonial duties and ushering.
The NCC, now 13 lakh in strength, plans to expand it’s number of cadets to 15 lakh with its rising popularity among the youth.
“We plan to reach out to more colleges and schools in states such as Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states also. We have cadets from Leh also coming to the camp. The response has been tremendous so far and we are all set to increase the strength,” Karawal said.
Interestingly, the NCC has also seen a rise in the percentage of girl cadets from 17 percent to 24 percent in the last year.
The director general said that considering the shortage of officers in the defence forces the NCC has always been dependable feeder for the armed forces as credits earned give cadets leverge in admissions to the National Defence Academy.
The almost month-long camp will be formally inaugurated Thursday by Vice President Hamid Ansari. Cadets from all 17 NCC directorates are staying together at the camp.
