Army Chief in Raipur tomorrow

     Raipur, March 26, 2009: Chief of Indian Army Gen Deepak Kapoor is arriving here tomorrow on a two day visit of Chhattisgarh to discuss with the high officials about setting up the first ever army unit in the state.

     The Chief of Army Staff Gen Kapoor is arriving at Raipur tomorrow at 2.30 PM and has a busy schedule for two days before his departure to Delhi, top officials told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com.

     Gen Kapoor is coming here to set up an army unit in the state, which would be the first ever in Chhattisgarh, they said adding besides Raipur the Army Chief would also visit the Jungle Warfare Centre at Kanker.

     In fact, the Army is interested to set up a cantonment in Bilaspur and a firing range in Narayanpur besides they are interested for a sizeable land in the new capital area to have one of their offices, the top officials said.

     The Army has selected 2100 acre lands in the Chakarbhata area of Bilaspur district for construction of a cantonment, with facilities to train elite forces, they said.

     In fact in 1939 the defence forces had operated from Bilaspur region of Chhattisgarh during the World War, because of which they had acquired about 471 acre lands in Mohanbhata area of Bilaspur and since 1939 that land was still under their possession, officials from Bilaspur said.

      Looking into its strategic location, the Defence Ministry and the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, both are interested to have at least one unit of the defence forces here in the state and the coming of Gen Kapoor here assumed significance from that point of view.

     Besides Army, the Indian Air Force is also looking for proper place to have a unit and in that respect they had visited Bilaspur, Bhilai and Rajnandgaon and have preferred Mohanbhata area of Bilaspur during the initial survey, the officials said.

     Meanwhile, Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh told the ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com that he was looking forward to the visit of the Chief of Army Staff and definitely his visit would yield good result for the state.

      After arriving at Raipur, Gen Kapoor is scheduled to meet the Governor E S L Narasimhan and than he would have a detailed discussion with the Chief Minister, they said.

     In that meeting with the Chief Minister at his residence, Chief Secretary P Joy Oommen, Home Secretary Narendra Kumar Aswal, Revenue Secretary Jawahar Srivastav and Secretary to the Chief Minister N Baijendra Kumar, besides the Director General of Police Anil Kumar Navaney and IG (Intelligence) Durgesh Madhav Awasthy are likely to be present, officials said.