Doaba youths disappoint Army

Raizada was sharing his observations with the media during a press conference.

He said that not only the stamina of youths here had gone down drastically but also their eating habits had changed and “pizza and burger eaters” could not fit in the Army. He added that drug abuse was a great cause of concern in the state.

Youngsters were more interested in computer games than playing football in the ground,Raizada said.

Citing examples of poor stamina,he said more then half of the youths who participated in the rally fell down after completing just one round in the race.

He said this rally was meant for the youth from Doaba region comprising Jalandhar,Hoshiarpur,Nawanshahr and Kapurthala districts. “But youths here had shown less interest in Army recruitment as only 9000,including 5000 from Hoshiarpur alone,turned up against more than 11,000 last year while we were expecting around 20,000 this year,” he said.

Asked about the cause of poor turnout of youth despite rampant unemployment in state,Raizada said that people from this NRI belt are more interested in going abroad then joining the Army. Ongoing exams were also a reason for the poor turnout this year,he said while adding that timing of the rally could also be one of the reasons.

He informed that the Army got a good response in other regions of Punjab,including Malwa and Majha during recruitment rallies. About J&K,he said that there also 35,000 youths turned up at the army recruitment rally in February.

About the declining popularity of NCC in schools,he said,it was less in private schools and the Army would take up the matter with the authorities to have NCC in private schools also.