With the initiatives of the Home Department, a liaison conference between civil and army administrations was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi at the State Secretariat on Tuesday.
Home Principal Secretary Asit Tripathy outlined the issues for discussion. Around seven senior Army officers led by Major General DVS Rana participated in the conference. The Chief Secretary sought establishment of an Army recruitment office at Koraput, establishment of a Brigade headquarters at Amarda Road in Baleswar district and recruitment of more youths from southern Odisha. He also wanted relaxation of selection norms for tribal youths.
Home Secretary Tripathy while replying to media queries said that the last year’s recruitment to the Army has been less than the State’s quota. “We have requested them to carry forward the balance quota and organise more recruitment rallies in the State,” he said.
Tripathy added that the district administrations would provide all support for organisation of recruitment rallies. “We target to recruit around 1,300 youths during the current calendar year,” he informed.
He also raised the need for establishment of more ECHS hospitals in the State to provide medical treatment to ex-servicemen and their dependants.
There was mutual sharing of views on various issues relating to hinterland security, costal security and use of military in disaster management. The administrative issues relating to land allocations for military establishments like a military station at Sambalpur, a Defence unit at Gopalpur, exchange of land for construction of Brahmapur Stadium, rehabilitation of Nolia families in Gopalpur, joint survey and demarcation of Defence land at various places in the State, ex-gratia to next kin of the martyrs, etc., were discussed and possible solutions were worked out.
Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan, Revenue & Disaster Management Principal Secretary Mona Sharma, Fisheries & Animal Resource Development and Excise Secretary Bishnupada Sethi, senior police officers, Maj Gen R Kochhar, Brigadier JS Sandhu along with senior officers from coastal security, railway, ODRAF participated in discussions.