Government has decided to set up a committee under the Chairmanship of Shri Anil Swarup, former Secretary, School Education, with suitable representations from NCC, M/o Youth Affairs and Ministry of HRD to suggest measures to strengthen National Cadet Corps (NCC) and National Service Scheme (NSS).
The Committee will deal with on issues like expansion, strengthening training infrastructure, rationalizing resources, reducing manpower deficiency affecting NCC and NSS. The Committee will also submit recommend for building synergies between these two institutions viz. NCC and NSS and further strengthen them for empowering the youth.
At present, there are 13.5 lakh cadets in NCC in the age group of 12 to 26 years with pan India presence in about 703 out of 716 districts. There are a large number of educational institutions in the country including as much as 8600 on waitlist in which NCC is yet to be extended. There is also an existing shortage in the NCC manpower across the categories ranging from 5% to 36%.
The NCC has an annual budget allocation of about Rs.2200 crore with Central Government share of about Rs.1600 crore. NCC, with this meagre resources, is not able to expand itself and to cover all the districts of the country and cater to the needs of waitlisted educational institutions.
A meeting was held recently in PMO to revamp the NCC and NSS. Ministry of Youth Affairs, Ministry of Human Resource Development and NCC through the Ministry of Defence participated in the discussion. The discussion was mainly focused on taking measures for strengthening NCC and NSS and how youth could be empowered through these institutions. NSS has been playing a very active role in the service of the nation, particularly in the Government’s Programme such as Swachh Bharat Mission.