Dr. Avnish Jolly, 23rd Chandigarh, 2008 :Dr. Upinderjit Kaur, Education Minister Punjab said that the NCC activities need to be strengthened in the state so as to create human resource of organized, trained and motivated youth besides building their character morally and physically. She was presiding over the third meeting of the State Advisory Committee meeting of NCC here today.
She agreed that the NCC training schedule has been hampered because of the big gap between the demand and the allocation of the funds meant for the NCC activities. She also said that the matter regarding the revised allocation of the budget for state NCC group would be taken up with the chief minister and the Finance Minister Punjab. She has also assured them of providing adequate infrastructure like computers and other related set-up for the unit offices.
Taking part in the deliberations Brig. Rajinder Singh, Deputy Director General NCC Punjab said that at present there were 29 units of NCC managing 562 institutes all over the state. He urged the state government to enhance the budgetary allocations for NCC cadets so that the youth should not suffer because of the financial crunch. He regretted that Punjab was lagging behind the other states in matter of NCC.
Col. KJ Singh Cdr, NCC group and Coordinator for NCC in Punjab gave a detailed presentation of the NCC units and their activities all over the state. He said that 48,000 cadets have been enrolled for imparting training through NCC units.
As far as the NCC complexes were concerned the NCC directorate had asked the state government to construct four NCC housing units at Patiala, Ludhiana, Jullundhar and Amritsar for which each complex required three to four acres of land. The government has asked the deputy commissioners to identify the required land and it was observed that if these complexes came into being then the government could save a huge amount which was being spent on rents annually. It could also give impetus to NCC training besides accelerating co-ordination between NCC units.
Mrs. Anjali Bhawra, Secretary higher education, Mr. Ashok Kumar ADPI Colleges Punjab, besides other senior officers of the education and finance departments, principals of a few government colleges attended the meeting.