Army chief General Bikram Singh awards a cadet at a passing-out parade at the Officers’ Training Academy (OTA) in Gaya on Saturday. This was the first time since the institute opened in 2011 that an army chief reviewed the event. Singh said there was a deficiency of around 10,800 officers in the Indian Army. One hundred and twenty-eight cadets took part in the parade on Saturday. On whether there was a plan to open a new academy in view of the shortage of army officers, Singh said there were already three academies in the country. He added that adequate funds would be made available to OTA, Gaya, to develop infrastructure and increase the strength of the academy. It is the third of its kind in the country after Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, and the Officers’ Training Academy, Chennai. OTA, Gaya, was started to meet the shortage of army officers. Singh expressed satisfaction at the infrastructure and training standards achieved in the academy in a short period of time. Sources said there is a proposal to spend around Rs 1,200 crore towards infrastructure building on the campus. Of the allotted funds, Rs 21 crore has been spent. The required infrastructure has to be developed by 2017 to increase strength of cadets undergoing training from 307 to 750. Among the cadets, who completed a year’s basic military training at OTA, Gaya, 37 are in the special commissioned officer (SCO) category. The SCOs will be directly inducted into the Indian Army. Ninety-one cadets are under the technical entry scheme (TES) and they would proceed for a three-year engineering course at military technical institutions. After completing their course, these cadets will be inducted into the force as engineers. Singh also presented awards to the cadets who had excelled in training. Gold medals among SCO and TES cadets were awarded to Rajesh Sharma and Kartikeya Rawat respectively, while the silver medals were presented to SCO Bhuwana Chandra and TES cadet Kuldeep Sharma. The bronze medal among TES cadets was awarded to M. Hariharan. Gurez Company won the Commandant’s Championship Banner for being overall champions for the spring term 2013. Text by Alok Kumar, picture by Suman