The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Army school for Chennai soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 25, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Army school for Chennai soon

Special Correspondent

It will be the last one to come up The last one in a metropolis

CHENNAI: Chennai will soon have an Army school. It will be built at a cost of Rs. 6.3 crore, said Anup S. Jamwal, Adjutant General (AG), Army headquarters.

He was interacting with retired officers at the Area Officers Mess here on Friday.

This will be the last Army school to come up in a metropolis as it has been decided not to set up more schools in metro areas. The school will be located near the Military Hospital in Nandambakkam and the work is expected to begin next month. The school will have modern facilities and will have classes till Plus Two.

`Heart first approach'

Lt.Gen. Jamwal said that he had brought in the `heart first approach' while dealing with applications. "I tell officials and staff to look at an application as if the officer or the staff himself has written it," he said and added that all applicants had to be treated with dignity and respect.

He followed up with all levels of the hierarchy and also made "focussed and random calls" to sensitise all commanders to issues that affect soldiers and ex-servicemen.

Lt.Gen. Jamwal said that the Army was concerned about suicides by soldiers in combat areas and in low intensity conflict regions. The Army had adopted a psychological approach to these problems, he said.

The General, who commanded a Corps and raised another before taking over as AG, said that more ex-servicemen rallies would be held across the country and their problems addressed. The concept of veteran hostels had been widely welcomed and many former soldiers found them useful.

The AG said the Army aimed at consolidating 227 polyclinics set up across the country. The entire medical benefit scheme was being closely looked at to ensure that ex-servicemen derived the maximum benefit. Since medicine shortage was a serious issue in both polyclinics and military hospitals, a new plan was thought of. As per this plan, from the next month, medicines would be supplied by drug companies directly to the hospitals and polyclinics.

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