Haryana offers land to Army for setting up prepartory institute

CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government has offered land to the Army for setting up of Armed Forces preparatory institute in the state.
An offer was made by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday at civil military liaison conference held at Chandigarh with senior military officers.
General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) Western Command Lieutenant General Surinder Singh; Chief of Staff (COS), Western Command Lt Gen P M Bali and other senior officers of the state government and Army were also present on the occasion.
While describing Haryana as the state of ‘jawan and kisan’, he said, “At present the state’s contribution in the Armed Forces is over 9% that is significant, but we want to raise it further to over 10%. To achieve this, we are ready to give all support and cooperation, including land, to the Army for the setting up of a preparatory institute in the state so that maximum number of youth could join the Armed Forces. Recently, Khanda village panchayat in Sonipat district offered 50 acres for the setting up of Armed Forces’ preparatory institute.”
It was also decided at the meting that a memorandum of understanding would be signed between Western Command and the state government for making provision of civil medical facilities to the Armed Forces in case of war or duties. There are 12,660 beds in state government hospitals, besides having fully equipped surgical teams in 22 districts. Apart from this, Haryana has 28 government and 79 private blood banks. It also has 60 advance and 207 basic ambulances.
The meeting delegates also discussed that the Army headquarters had also approved the proposal for setting up of Army collage in Budha Khera Lather village in Jind district in the memory of Major Sanjeev Lather. Major Lather had attained martyrdom in November 2016 in a chopper crash at Sukhna in West Bengal. The village panchayat has offered 25 acres free of cost for the purpose.
Speaking on the occasion, Haryana chief secretary D S Dhesi said the amount of ex-gratia had been increased from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 50 lakh for the kin of martyred soldiers. Apart from this, it has been decided recently that in case of martyrdom of a Class I Army officer, his dependent would be provided a Class II government job.
Army commander of Western Command Lt Gen Singh thanked the Haryana CM for being receptive to the needs of serving soldiers and ex-servicemen in the state. He described the soldiers of Haryana as good and hardy and hoped that the Indian Army would continue to get more soldiers from the state.