Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday reviewed the contribution of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) in preventing the spread of COVID-19 through a video conference.

This is the first-ever such conference in which the Defence Minister has directly interacted with 17 NCC Directorates located all over the country.  Lt Gen Rajeev Chopra, DG NCC and Dr Ajay Kumar, Defence Secretary also participated in the conference.

In his opening remarks, Rajnath Singh said that the country is passing through challenging times and the government has taken several effective measures under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to contain COVID-19. He expressed confidence that the nation will emerge victorious from this crisis.

Singh appreciated the vital role that the NCC directorates were playing as more than 60 thousand NCC cadets, of whom 25 per cent were girl cadets, are assisting the local administration in preventing COVID-19.

The NCC cadets have been engaged in logistics and supply chain management duties, ensuring the supply of essential food material, medicines, assisting in traffic duties, etc. Some of the cadets have also made educational videos for social media while others have made masks and distributed them locally.

While appreciating their praiseworthy role, Singh cautioned that the NCC cadets should be deployed for only such tasks for which they have been trained.

During the review meeting, Rajnath Singh announced that the Government is determined to expand the NCC and has decided to go ahead for its expansion in the Coastal and Border areas.

Singh also stressed on the modernisation of NCC with a view to making it more relevant to the new and changing times. He also stressed on the need to make the NCC activities compatible with the semester system of colleges and universities.

The ADGs and DDGs of the NCC Directorates unanimously thanked him for the unique opportunity of direct interaction with him and apprised him of the NCC cadets’ contribution in fighting COVID-19 in their respective Directorates.

They briefed that the morale of the cadets is very high and that their contribution has received praise from both the citizens and the administration.