New Delhi: The Indian Army has plans to form Army Girls Sports Company (AGSC) in two locations — within its Centre of Excellence (COE) nodes at Mhow and Pune — to find and groom talent in the field.
These girls, who will undergo training at the Army’s COEs, will also be eligible to be absorbed into the forces. They can be direct entry non-commissioned officers and direct entry junior commissioned officers, apart from Agniveers.
The AGSCs will be fully functional by April 2024.
Sources in the Army told ThePrint, “These units will identify young talent, provide them with formal education apart from other administrative requirements and will train them to be ‘champions’ in their respective sporting discipline.”
The Army had identified talent similarly in the past. For instance, Subedar Preeti Rajak, a champion trap shooter and Asian Games silver medallist, was identified as a talent and enrolled as a havildar in Corps of Military Police in December 2022. She was the first woman soldier to be promoted to subedar in January 2024. She trains at the Army Marksmanship Unit at Mhow. Similarly, Jasmine Lamboria, bronze medallist in Commonwealth Games 2022, was also enrolled as a non-commissioned officer in October 2022.
Now, the AGSC will train young girls from all parts of the country in shooting, archery, athletics, boxing and weightlifting.
On selecting Mhow and Pune, the source said, “These locations have been selected as they have world-class training infrastructure, sports medicine centre, rehabilitation facility and related coaching facilities.”
The idea to have youngsters at these two locations was to train them alongside senior Army teams and individual athletes, who are also being coached at these locations.
They sources added that the disciplines have also been very carefully selected where Indian women are progressively establishing their might at Asian and world levels
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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