Pune: Maharashtra, one of the country’s largest and consistently high-performing National Cadet Corps (NCC) directorates with nearly 1.5 lakh cadets, does not have any dedicated NCC academy, senior NCC officers said on Wednesday.The infrastructure deficit has affected the conduct and quality of training programmes, forcing the state to rely heavily on private colleges and other institutional campuses to organise camps for large cadet batches.NCC Director General Lieutenant General Virendra Vats and Maharashtra NCC Additional Director General Major General Vivek Tyagi flagged these issues during their visit to NCC Group Headquarters in Pune.“States such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have their dedicated NCC academies. Maharashtra does not have one. It is affecting the overall training of our cadets. Our consultations and discussions with the state govt have been going on for the last few years, but there has been no progress yet,” Vats told TOI.The demand assumes significance given that Maharashtra’s directorate has won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Banner 20 times, the highest among NCC directorates across the country.Tyagi said Maharashtra required seven dedicated NCC academies, corresponding to its seven NCC group headquarters.“As per the NCC Act, it was mandatory for the state govt to establish an academy for each group headquarters. Maharashtra therefore required seven academies where we could train at least 1,000 cadets at a time,” he said.Each proposed academy would require at least 12 acres of land, besides accommodation, training facilities, kitchens and other supporting infrastructure. The estimated cost of each academy is over Rs 100 crore, taking the potential requirement for seven academies to over Rs 700 crore.An academy project at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was inaugurated a few months ago, but work on the project has not progressed as expected, officials said.“Currently, we have to depend on private college campuses where we organise camps and training. It remained a tough task for us to conduct these programmes smoothly,” Tyagi told TOI.The officers said the proposed academies could eventually incorporate modern modules such as drone operations and cyber technology.“With the advent of technology, its use in the armed forces is vast. We also want to acquaint our cadets with drone and cyber technology and training. The dedicated academies will have these facilities in the future. It is for the talented youth of the state. The govt needs to consider these aspects seriously,” Tyagi said.NCC has also proposed that large campuses of govt institutions, including agriculture colleges and ITIs, as well as suitable private engineering colleges, be made available for training activities until dedicated academies are established.Staff shortage adds to infra challengeNCC officers also flagged a shortage of civilian staff at NCC group headquarters across Maharashtra. An officer said, “State is supposed to recruit civil staff required for administrative work at the group headquarters. However, permanent recruitment has not been done for years. We therefore have to hire staff on a contractual basis every year. It is a time-consuming process. Vacancies are in the range of 40% to 60%, which is a big gap.”NCC is simultaneously expanding its footprint in Konkan, remote parts of Vidarbha and other parts of the state to bring more youngsters into the organisation.Deepak Singla, commissioner of sports and youth services, under whose department NCC directorate functions, did not respond to calls from TOI seeking comment.Airstrip insufficiency a boon for NCC cadetsPaucity of available airstrips, especially in Pune and Mumbai, makes it challenging for NCC air-wing cadets to conduct flying training in Maharashtra, Vats told TOI.“It has become a major challenge for us to conduct flying trainings for our cadets in Mumbai. Therefore, we are in the process of shifting the Mumbai flying base to Kolhapur. Likewise, we are open to relocating flying training to a suitable place, but again we will face several logistical challenges,” he said.Under the NCC training module, senior division air cadets are required to undertake four sorties on microlight training aircraft during their final year.The national pictureNCC has around 20 lakh cadets attached to 102 group headquarters nationwide. Its enrolment has grown from about 14 lakh to 20 lakh over the past 12 years, with an average annual increase of around 15% since 2014.Two new NCC directorates have been approved for Jharkhand and Telangana. However, there are only 12 dedicated NCC academies in India, while land acquisition has been completed for another 40 proposed academies.Around 150 armed forces officers are posted at NCC group headquarters across the country.
