New Delhi: President A P J Abdul Kalam today (Nov 29, 2004) suggested that a two-year NCC (National Cadet Corps) training be made compulsory for school and college students as he felt it would lead to elimination of corruption from the society, promote discipline and help protect the environment.

"In my view, two years' NCC training must be made compulsory for all eligible students, both for boys and girls at the school or college level," Kalam said delivering the National Cadet Corps lecture in New Delhi.

"This may work out to cadre strength of 20 million students for the NCC. I realise the NCC budget needed for this will increase substantially. However, the output in terms of societal development and peace will adequately compensate through the availability of young disciplined human resource," he told NCC cadets and officers who had come from across the country to participate in its 56th Founding Day celebrations.

Kalam said 540 million youth below the age of 25 were the "prime resource" for transforming India into a developed country by 2020.

He said he was confident that if 10 million trained NCC cadets were "injected" into the society with a mission every year, it would have a positive impact by promoting righteous life, eliminating corruption, improving efficiency, augmentating a clean environment and ensuring disciplined and committed action on the part of the cadets.

"The mission of the NCC rightly fits into the evolution of enlightened citizens needed for developed India mission," he added.

"Dynamics of the nation with a billion population are becoming complex day by day. Every year, 10 million educated youth who are injected into the society are looking for employment opportunities. They need productive employment, otherwise instability in the society will set in," Kalam said.

The President also had a word of advice for political parties, asking them to "compete with each other" to determine how the country could be developed faster in quality and work for providing higher standards of living for the people.

Kalam said of the estimated 20 million cadets trained by NCC since its inception, about 30 per cent had joined the Armed Forces.

"A special research should be taken up by the Ministry of Defence in collaboration with Indian Institutes of Management to study and analyse how the balance 70 per cent have made an impact on society through their chosen area of work and their work ethics, ethos, performance and career path," he suggested.

He said the "new role" of the NCC should be to demonstrate that the Government could utilise the power of the youth for national development cutting across political and geographical barriers.

Kalam said integrated action in core competence areas - agriculture and food processing, reliable electric power, transport, education, healthcare, information and communication technology and strategic sectors - was necessary to make India a developed nation.

Speaking on the occasion, NCC director general N C Bhandari said in a few years, girl cadets would move to "responsible positions" in the largest uniformed youth organisation in the world with 13 lakh cadets.