Tribune News Service,Patiala, December 21

Over 29,000 aspirants from five districts – Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Mansa and Fatehgarh Sahib – have registered online for the next recruitment rally of the Indian Army, which is scheduled early next year.Giving information in this regard, Col Vaneet Mehta, Director, Recruitment, said it was for the first time that no manual application were accepted by the Army.He said while they were expecting around 20,000 aspirants to register for the next recruitment rally, the online process had received an overwhelming response. He said the online registration would remain open till January 14.On the issue of rectifying any anomalies during the online registration, Mehta said the aspirant had been given an opportunity to approach the recruitment office of the Army and get these corrected.He said in order to save the time and make sure that adequate arrangements were made for applicants, it was decided to discontinue with open recruitment rallies and instead introduce online registration.He said there were many problems that they came across during open rallies since they were totally unaware of the number of candidates that may turn up for the rally.“Having a clear idea about the number of candidates certainly enables us to make proper arrangements,” he said. Mehta said this also allowed the Army to check the eligibility of aspirants and then shortlist them, which would save time.