NCC gets separate directorates for Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand, takes total to 19

New Delhi: The National Cadet Corps has approved the creation of independent state directorates for Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand. This raises the total number of NCC state directorates across India from 17 to 19. The decision, cleared by the headquarters of the Directorate General NCC, takes effect immediately.

Until now, both states were administered through combined directorates – Andhra Pradesh was grouped with Telangana, and Jharkhand with Bihar – an arrangement that the NCC says has limited administrative focus and outreach in these regions. The new directorates will give each state its own command structure, enabling more direct supervision of training activities, faster coordination with schools and colleges, and better support for cadets on the ground.

The NCC, established in 1948 with an initial strength of 20,000 cadets, has grown considerably since its founding. The organisation now claims a strength of over 20 lakh cadets, making it the largest uniformed youth organisation in the world by enrolment. It currently operates across more than 750 districts. Between 2014 and 2025, cadet numbers increased by six lakh, a period that has seen the government push an expansion of the NCC’s footprint, including into border and coastal districts.

The structural change is expected to benefit cadets and institutions in states where NCC penetration has historically been uneven. Andhra Pradesh, reconstituted as a bifurcated state in 2014 following the creation of Telangana, and Jharkhand, carved out of Bihar in 2000, both have large populations of school- and college-going youth who stand to gain from a more locally rooted administrative presence.

The Ministry of Defence, which oversees the NCC, has not specified a timeline for when the new directorates will become fully operational or announced the appointment of officers to head them.