Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Tuesday that an upcoming school of the city government to prepare students for the armed forces will be named after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.
The school will come up on a 14-acre campus at Jharoda Kalan with state-of-the-art facilities. It will be affiliated to the Delhi Board of School Education, a government official said.
On the eve of Bhagat Singh's death anniversary, the chief minister said, "March 23 is the day of martyrdom of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh. It was on this day in 1931 that our great freedom fighters -- Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev -- were hanged to death by the British. All three sacrificed their lives for the country, to fight for the freedom of our people." On December 20 last year, the Delhi cabinet had announced that a new and different type of school will be built in the national capital where students will be trained in their early years in order to make them eligible for recruitment in the armed forces, he said.
Training will be provided to these students so that they can get themselves enrolled in the National Defence Academy (NDA), the Navy and the Air Force, Kejriwal said, adding that they will be prepared to become defence officers in the future in this specialised school.
"It will be named after Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh -- Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory School," he said during an online briefing. It will be a residential school and the students will not be charged any fees, the chief minister added.
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"The school will admit students to classes 9 and 11. There will be 200 seats -- 100 in each class. We have already received 18,000 applications for the 200 seats," he said.
An aptitude test will be conducted on March 27 for admission to Class 9. The test for enrolment in Class 11 will be held the next day. In the second phase, interviews will be conducted of the shortlisted candidates, Kejriwal said.
"It will be a residential campus with separate hostels for boys and girls. A 14-acre stretch of land in Jharoda Kalan has been allotted for the development of the campus, where this new and improved school will be built.
"The way ideal training for officer-like qualities is provided in the armed forces to young men and women, similar qualities will be imbibed in these students and hence, they will be prepared for the NDA, the Naval Academy and other armed services in the future. Expert faculty will be employed for optimum training of these students, which will include veterans from the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force," he said.
The chief minister described the initiative as a unique tribute to Bhagat Singh by the people of Delhi.