Gaya: Army chief General V.K. Singh on Monday formally declared open the Officers Training Academy (OTA) here, which has already begun training its first batch of cadets.

The OTA was envisaged to help reduce the shortage in the officers strength of the Indian Army that now is managing with just about 35,000 officers, compared to its sanctioned strength of 47,864.

The Gaya OTA is the third military academy of the country that trains officers for the army and the second for training short service commissioned officers -- the other one already functioning in Chennai. The third is the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun that exclusively trains permanent commissioned officers.

The academy here began its first training course July 18 this year. The first course inauguration was done by Army Training Command General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Lt. Gen. K. Surendra Nath.

Functioning under the Shimla-headquartered Army Training Command (ARTRAC), the OTA was raised in record time after approval last year for construction of modern and state-of-the-art infrastructure and world-class training facilities.

With "Shaurya, Gyan aur Sankalp" (valour, knowledge, resolution) as it motto, the Gaya OTA has 149 cadets in its first batch. But the strength will be increased gradually to its full capacity of 750 cadets in a few years. IANS