19 cadets pay up and quit AFMC

Pranjal Bhuyan / TNN / Feb 16, 2008, 03:34 IST

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Unlike NDA, Pune, or OTA, Chennai, where qualified admission seekers are a rarity, medical cadets opt out from serving the armed forces by paying the bond amount of Rs 15 lakh.

PUNE: At a time when the Indian Army is facing a backlog of around 12,600 commissioned officers, an exodus is also taking place among the medical cadets at the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) here.
However, unlike the National Defence Academy (NDA), Pune, or the Officers�� Training Academy (OTA), Chennai, where qualified admission seekers are becoming a rarity, medical cadets come to the AFMC, join the course, get a degree and then opt out from serving the armed forces by paying the bond amount of Rs 15 lakh.
The AFMC is the only medical training institution for the tri-services.
According to Lieutenant General S.K. Kaul, commandant and director of AFMC, a total of 45 cadets paid the bond money between 2002-03 and 2006-07.

This year, in a sudden upward swing, 19 cadets have opted to break the bond, even as the commissioning ceremony is still a month away.
The numbers had reached a high of 27 in 2002-03 which prompted the government to increase the bond amount from Rs 3 lakh to the Rs 15 lakh.
It had an effect with bond opt-outs falling to mere three in 2003-04, three in 2004-05, eight in 2005-06, and four in 2006-07, before again swinging up this year.

Whereas batches remain below maximum capacity in NDA or OTA, more than one lakh candidates apply every year for the MBBS course at the AFMC which has an intake capacity of 130 Indian cadets (105 boys and 25 girls).
Senior army officers are, however, not bothered about the ��exodus��. "It has always been the government policy to let students go if they are not comfortable with the idea of serving a commission. In fact, the existing system where AFMC pass-outs rub shoulders with graduates from other institutes gives a quality to our medical corps," said Kaul.
A majority of the officers commissioned into the Army Medical Corps (AMC) each year are graduates of the AFMC.
Unlike earlier, AFMC graduates cannot opt for short service commission (SSC) nowadays. "A compulsory permanent commission, salary many times higher than the army pay and a less hazardous life make Rs 15 lakh seem a pittance after receiving such high-quality training," said a serving AMC officer.

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