'Devoid of Truth', Says Govt on Report That It Plans to Impart Military Training to Instill Nationalism

New Delhi: The central government on Tuesday rubbished a recent media report which claimed that the government was planning to target 10 lakh young men and women every year with a military training programme.

In a strongly worded statement, the ministry of youth affairs said the report was “sensational misrepresentation” and called it an unfortunate and deliberate attempt to create a wrong impression.

The report had claimed that a National Youth Empowerment Scheme or N-YES was being planned by the Narendra Modi government to “optimise the Indian demographic advantage” and it would help instill values of nationalism and discipline in the youth.

It claimed that the government had proposed incentives for students of Class 10 and 12 and those enrolled in college It further said that it had been proposed to make the scheme a mandatory qualification for jobs in defence, paramilitary forces and police. According to the report, the programme would instill values of nationalism, discipline and self-esteem in the youth, and it was a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of New India 2022.

Saying that the report was devoid of any truth, the government said that the meeting talked about in the above report only pertained to strengthening the NSS and the NCC. The Ministry of Youth Affairs, Ministry of Human Resource Development and NCC through the Ministry of Defence had participated in the discussion, it said.

The ministry of youth affairs said that it was looking to address issues such as "manpower deficiency" in the NCC and NSS and has hence decided to form a committee under former education secretary Anil Swarup to revamp and strengthen the two youth institutions.

It stated that the committee will also have "suitable representations" from NCC (National Cadet Corps) and the Ministry of Human Resource and Development.

"The Committee will deal with issues like expansion, strengthening training infrastructure, rationalising resources, reducing manpower deficiency affecting NCC and NSS (National Service Scheme)," the statement read. The Committee will also submit recommendations for building "synergy" between these two institutions.

"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," the ministry stated. "There is also an existing shortage in the NCC manpower across the categories ranging from 5 per cent to 36 per cent," it added.

The NCC has an annual budget of about Rs 2200 crore with the central government's share being about Rs 1600 crore, according to the ministry data.

"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 wait-listed educational institutions," it said.