Page 12 - Failure to Triumph - Journey of A Student

NCC Special Entry Scheme. NCC ‘C’ certificate holders are eligible to join and do not
have to go through the UPSC entrance examination. They have to just pass in the SSB.

Women Entry Scheme. Women candidates are also being inducted into some branches of
the armed forces. In the Indian Air Force, they are also being inducted in flying arms. In the
future, slowly and steadily the armed forces will become an equal opportunity employer

offering greater role to the women of India in serving the nation.

Selection Centres

The Indian Army has three selection centres across the country. These are Selection Centre East at
Allahabad, Selection Centre Central at Bhopal and Selection Centre South at Bangalore. In all, there
are 10 Services Selection Boards of the Army which are organized as follows:-

Selection Centre East, Allahabad – 11 SSB, 14 SSB, 18 SSB, 19 SSB, 34 SSB

Selection Centre Central, Bhopal – 20 SSB, 21 SSB, 22 SSB

Selection Centre South, Bangalore – 17 SSB, 24 SSB

The Navy has two SSBs, one each at Bhopal and Bangalore and one Naval Selection Board at
Coimbatore. Three more boards are under formation at Visakhapatnam. The Air Force has three
boards namely,

No. 1 Air Force Selection Board at Dehradun

No. 2 Air Force Selection Board at Mysore

No. 3 Air Force Selection Board at Varanasi

As it stands today, Indian Armed Forces offers one of the finest careers of all. Ironically, while the
youth in our country is struggling to find employment, there are thousands of vacancies in the armed

forces which are not being filled year after year. What is believed is that talented youth are not
coming to join the armed forces. But what is true is that there is absolute lack of awareness and
knowledge about the selection process. Interaction with student population across the country reveals
that a lot of myth exists in the environment about what happens in the services selection boards. Even
the internet is full of unfounded information shared by candidates based on what they perceive of the
selection process. To add to the confusion, there are several coaching centres across the country that

are run by people who have never worked in the selection system or are not aware of the current
practices. Still more, there are SSB books which are far from the reality. The selectors at services
selection board often come across candidates who are otherwise good but have not performed well at