New Delhi, August 18
The expenditure of hundreds of crores of rupees being incurred on training schoolchildren under the National Cadet Corps (NCC) programme is not resulting in adequate number of admissions of NCC students into the armed forces special entry courses.

The cost-to-benefit ratio in terms of money spent and the number of NCC cadets joining the forces is very high. The Ministry of Defence spent Rs 707 crore during the last fiscal to have around 12 lakh students on NCC rolls across the country. However, only 79 such students finally made it to the armed forces in 2010. Parliament was yesterday informed that the spending on NCC students was Rs 562 crore for the fiscal ending March 2009.

Avinash Rai Khanna, BJP MP from Punjab, who raised the issue in Parliament, said, “The ministry needs to look at the costs and also the results.” Meanwhile, sources said one of the reasons for the NCC getting huge number of enrolments across the country was the academic value of an NCC “A” certificate. This is graded as an extra-curricular activity like sports and it helps in getting a minor boost in marks for further admissions to various colleges and courses.

The number of NCC cadets is the highest (1.22 lakh) are in Andhra Pradesh. The northern states also have impressive numbers: Punjab (44,803), Haryana (33,642), Himachal Pradesh (23,740), Uttarakhand (24,183), Delhi (38,547) and Chandigarh (4,314).

The number of students with NCC background getting into the forces has never been very high. The number was the highest in 2004 when 104 students got through. The number of such recruitments (79) last year was the highest for the past four years. Parliament was also informed that the 24 sainik schools across the country have been sending a reasonable number of students to the NDA.