Gujarat wants more to join Army, organises training, stipend

Around 2,000-2,200 youths from Gujarat enter the armed forces on an average every year.

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To increase the enrolment of state youths in armed forces, the Gujarat Labour & Employment Department has decided to organise extensive, 45-day training for aspirants in all 33 districts of the state. The first such camp will begin in Ahmedabad on Monday, May 1, Gujarat Foundation Day. The department will organise 53 residential training camps, and provide the shortlisted youths Rs 100 stipend daily. An amount of Rs 3 crore has been set aside for the project, named as Swami Vivekanand Purvseva Niwasi Talim (Swami Vivekanand Pre-service Residential Training). Up to 1,600 youths can receive training at the camps.

“Gujarat youths are capable, but owing to lack of proper guidance, they are not able to clear the selection procedure for the armed forces. Therefore, we have started this initiative. It will be carried out every year now. We want maximum participation from Gujarat in this field of serving the nation,” Labour and Employment Minister Dilip Thakore told The Indian Express. An officer of the department, who didn’t want to be identified, said it was felt that youths from Gujarat fared “very poorly” in selection for all the three defence forces. “One of our long-term goals is to have maximum representation of Gujarat in the armed forces so that eventually there is a Gujarat regiment,” the officer said.

Around 2,000-2,200 youths from Gujarat enter the armed forces on an average every year. The officer said that while that the state authorities had held such training camps earlier, the efforts were “scattered” and had not yielded the desired results. Hence the plan to cover all the 33 districts now. “I am not sure if other states are conducting such training camps, but they might not be doing so since other states have much better representation in the armed forces,” the officer said.

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The camps would be organised at all the district headquarters and in seven municipal corporations. Besides, there will be four camps for Scheduled Castes, and nine for Scheduled Tribes. Training would be provided by retired defence and police officials. Each camp would house 30 candidates, who would be selected after scrutiny by the department. The selected candidates would then get 30 days’ residential training and 15 days’ additional training on various aspects of the entrance examinations for the armed forces. They would get Rs 100 daily stipend all through the programme.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has been pushing employment generation and skill development in the state ahead of the Assembly polls. The government conducted a Mega Job Fair recently to facilitate employment of youths in the private sector, and announced plans to fill 67,000 vacancies this year. The training camps for defence entrance are part of that effort, officials said.

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