Over 71,000 Guj youth register online for recruitment to Army

Contrary to common perception about youngsters from Gujarat wanting to join armed forces, 71000 of them have registered online for 10-day Army recruitment drive happening in the state till July 16, 2017.

In fact, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had even provoked an outrage when he had raised questions over the martyrdom of soldiers from Gujarat. He had made the comment after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken after killing of a young army officer in Kashmir. Akhilesh had said that while Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Southern parts of the country had a lot of martyred soldiers, had any soldier of Gujarat been martyred?

The current recruitment rally that began from Thursday would continue till July 16 and is being held at Vallabh Vidyanagar, roughly 3-km from Sardar Patel’s birthplace Karamsad. 

During 10 days selection, candidates from 21 districts in North, South and Central Gujarat, except Saurashtra-Kutch region, would be recruited for multiple roles, including combat. Candidates from neighbouring Union Territory Daman and Dadra Nagar Haveli too are participating in the selection process.

The defence officials said that nearly 5000 to 10,000 candidates were being interviewed by the army recruitment officers per day during the drive.

According to the recruitment officials, Gujarat has been witnessing a consistent increase in a number of participants per rally since 2014. While the number of recruits ranged between 300-400 per rally till 2013-14, Army recruitment office at Jamnagar saw nearly 500 candidates being selected in 2016-17, while over 780 candidates made it to Army at Himmatnagar rally in December 2016.

On Thursday Surat, Mahisagar, Dangs and Union Territory of Daman & Dadra Nagar Haveli participated in the selection procedure.