Coronavirus impact: SSB interview for Officers Training Academy's October course defers

Officers Training Academy, Tamil Nadu has suspended the training course of April session. The academy conducts training courses twice in the year, first in April and then in October. The interview is conducted by the Service Selection Board (SSB). For the October course too, the interview has been ordered to be deferred by the officials. For the officer cadre, on Monday, the Army authorities declared suspension of any kind of medical examination or plea against rejection in medical examination for new candidates. The authorities has also deferred the examination to train girls as nursing officers (on commissioned officers rank) in the defence forces has also been postponed by the authorities.

For the force, after this, the entire training along with the selection process for officers has been postponed in the country. In the past, military veterans have never heard of postponement of training of officers. They only recall early commissioning of cadets going through training at academies during the 1971 war. According to Major General B S Grewal, former deputy commandant of national defence academy (NDA), the situation has never been like this in the past. He stated that in 2009, when the swine flu broke out in the country, they told the cadets not to go out of the academy.  

According to Lt Gen K J Singh, former Army Commander of Wester Command, the postponement of training was a timely and pragmatic action. He further stated that whenever the situation would get normalized, the candidates would be informed through e-mail or telephonically to join immediately. In the first week of March, the Army has already deferred recruitment rallies for the selection of jawans.  

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