Visakhapatnam: Some 120 young women from the two Telugu states have been stretching their muscles at the Indian Army Calling (IAC) in Srikakulam in response to an offer from the Defence department to enroll females to junior level posts in Women Military Police (WMP).
They applied for the Indian Army’s new recruitment drive and for the Staff Selection Commission’s General Duty Police posts, both from next month. The IAC is the only institute in AP and TS offering a free training camp exclusively for girls interested in defence sector jobs. The applications had been invited online.
Nearly 14,000 girls/women registered their names, but the institute selected only 120 of them through tests and with a basic requirement that the candidate’s SSC marks should be above 85 per cent.
Almost all of them hailed from rural areas of Khammam, Warangal, Anantapur, Chittoor, Kurnool, Kadapa, Anantapur, and West Godavari. There were around 10 candidates from Greater Hyderabad at the institute, which was founded in 2018 by a group of ex-servicemen headed by B. Venkata Ramana.
Initially, the institute gave training for men and 180 of them got jobs. Later, from June 2020, it opened its door for girls/women.
Deccan Chronicle interacted with some of these aspirants.
Samatha from Hyderabad said “I am an NCC cadet from the school level. I wanted to join the defence service. I came here crossing nearly 800km and leaving my family. I am confident enough to get the job.”
Rajanamooni Madhuri from Vanaparthy in Telangana said, “I applied for the SSC job. My father is a farmer. I am strongly committed to joining the defence service. I wake up at 4am every day and join the training session.”
Chittoor girl Aneesha said she also has an NCC background and wanted to join the military.
IAC founder Ramana said the training centre takes Rs 3,500 from candidates to offer them the training. He was selected for the National Defence Academy, but did not get the job due to an accident during the training. Then, he decided to open the institute and run it as a trust. He took the help of ex-servicemen and got government support.
“The Indian Army opened 100 vacancies for the WMP this time. Nearly 40,000 candidates may compete. As this is the first time for the girls, it will be a tough task for us to prove our mettle. English is the main hurdle the candidates face in the test,” Ramana said.
Some 80 candidates out of the 120 got the admit cards for the WMP and the others were expecting the hall tickets by the end of September. The tests will be conducted in Karnataka from October.
