Indian Army has now begun a similar initiative for medical aspirants. (File image, PTI)

After the successful implementation and positive response from Kashmiri youth to its engineering ‘super 40’ scheme, the Indian Army has now begun a similar initiative for medical aspirants. The ‘Kashmir Super 30’ initiative for medical aspirants was inaugurated on June 12, ANI reported. “I believe the children will do well and serve the country. Since a year,our aim has been to engage youth and bring them to mainstream,” ANI quoted General officer Commanding 15 corps Gen AK Bhatt as saying during the inauguration.

Last year, 28 students from Jammu and Kashmir belonging to economically weaker sections had made the cut to prestigious institutions like IITs and NITs with the help of the Army’s ‘Kashmir Super 40’ initiative for engineering. The students enrolled under the ‘Kashmir Super 40’ initiative are trained under the aegis of the Centre for Social Responsibility and Leadership (CSRL) and Petronet LNG Limited (PLL).

Of the 40 students who enrolled for the project in 2017, thirty-five boys were given given coaching in Srinagar while five girls received training in Delhi. Of them, twenty-six boys and two girls qualified the IIT–JEE mains exam while nine made it to the IITs.

The project, named after Bihar teacher Anand Kumar’s ‘Super 30’, aims to support talented, underprivileged students of Kashmir to achieve educational success by providing entrance exam coaching.

At the inaugural ceremony, Lt Gen Bhatt also said, “There’s peace among public due to ceasefire. If in these 30 days there’s no civil casualty it would be good news for us. Pakistan is still trying to infiltrate & our troops are being deployed to retaliate,” ANI reported.

Moreover, the Indian Army also organises Sadbhavana tour, which aims to develop trust among and reignite the minds of youth towards national integration. As part of this tour, youth visit various places across India, for example, in November 2017, students of ITI and Polytechnic institutions of Kashmir’s Budgam district visited various industrial centres of Delhi, Noida and Gurugram.