After the seventh passing out parade at Officers' Training Academy here on Saturday, 154 cadets of two categories - 106 under technical entry scheme and 48 of special commissioned officer - will be commissioned as officers in the army. South-Western Command general officer commanding-in-chief Lieutenant General Arun Kumar Sahni will review the parade as chief guest.

OTA-Gaya commandant Lieutenant General R.K. Sharma on Wednesday distributed medals, merit cards and trophies among the basic military training cadets.

Shakti Singh Shekhawat got nine awards - three medals, three trophies and three merit cards. Devraj Kumar bagged commandant's medal for best cadet in academics and Lohit Yadav for best overall performance under TES. 

Lt. Gen. Sharma also presented the certificates to 31 cadets who completed their one-year post-graduate diploma in military studies and defence management from Magadh University. The course has been specially launched for the cadets undergoing training at OTA.

Lt. Gen. Sharma said the key layout plan worth around Rs 1,253 crore, which has been prepared for OTA-Gaya, would soon get approval from the cabinet committee of security. After the approval, it would take around seven years to build the state-of-the-art infrastructure on the campus to make it a world-class academy. At present, the academy has capacity to impart training to 400 cadets, which will be increased to 750. At present, 80 officers, besides around 250 of other junior rank impart training to the cadets. The strength of trainers will also be increased in future. More cadets from foreign army, including Bhutan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries, will get training here.

Text by Alok Kumar, picture by Suman