Punjab to double training targets of armed forces preparatory institutes

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 8

While affecting a modest hike of about 6 per cent in the outlay for defence services welfare, the Punjab government has proposed to double the training targets of the two armed forces preparatory institutes in the state that prepares students to join the services as commissioned officers.

Stating that the state government has always accorded top priority to the welfare of ex-servicemen, war-widows, world war veterans, disabled soldiers and their dependents, the finance minister, Manpreet Singh Badal, proposed an outlay of Rs 135 crore for 2021-22 in his budget speech today.

To increase the intake of officer from Punjab, which had sharply declined two decades ago, the state government had established the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute in Mohali to prepare students at the 10+2 level for joining the National Defence Academy (NDA).

This institute targets to train 48 cadets through a residential 2-year programme every year and a total 97 cadets have joined the NDA and other academies and so far 65 cadets have become commissioned officers in the defence services.

Following its success, Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute was set up exclusively for girls to prepare 25 girls every year over a period of 3 years for joining the services after graduation. So far three cadets have become commissioned officers and another seven cadets have appeared for interview by the Services Selection Board.

The finance minister has proposed to double the training targets for both the institutes in 2021-22. He also proposed an allocation of Rs 29 crore in the forthcoming fiscal for the proposed Sardar Bahadur Amin Chand Soni Armed Forces Preparatory Institute that is expected to come up by the end of 2021 near Hoshiarpur. It will train 270 youth every year for joining the defence forces as commissioned officers through the Combined Defence Services Examination or the Air Force Central Admission Test.

As far as the state government’s unique Guardians of Governance scheme is concerned, an allocation of Rs 64 crore has been proposed for 2021-22 against Rs 60 crore in 2020-21. The scheme employees 4,300 ex-servicemen in the state to ensure efficacious execution of various welfare schemes and other citizen-centric services.

In addition, Badal also proposed to set up two new galleries in the War Memorial Complex at Amritsar with an allocation of Rs 18 crore and an allocation of Rs 5 crore to improve the condition of the Sainik School at Kapurthala.

Further, a target of training 10,000 youths every year has been set for the Centre for Training and Employment of Punjab Youth (C-PYTE) and Rs 17 crore have been proposed for this scheme. So far a total of 23,412 youths were recruited for training in the C-PYTE camps out of which 4,227 were recruited in the army and police during the tenure of the present government.

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