SLA to recruit 4000 soldiers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 August 2003, 10:16 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) is to launch a massive recruitment drive to recruit about 4000 soldiers and interviews will commence on 18 August in several locations islandwide, the state controlled Sunday Observer newspaper reported quoting Brigadier Jammika Liyanage, Director, Personnel Administration, of the SLA.

The recruitment will continue till end of this month and the new recruits would be given a fourteen weeks training in 15 army training centres located in Boosa, Panagoda, Diyatalawa, Kandy, Embilipitya, Colombo and Saliyapura in the south and in Ampara in the eastern province.

"This is the first time the army is carrying out a large scale recruitment after the United National Front government signed the ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," the Sunday Observer reported.

Quoting Brigadier Liyanage, the news report further said that there were more than ten thousand vacancies for soldiers at present.

Meanwhile, the army has postponed the pilot project to issue discharge-certificates to the deserted soldiers in the Gampaha district till September, giving priority to the new recruitment drive. The SLA headquarters had earlier said it would start issuing discharge-certificates to about five thousand deserted soldiers now living in the Gampaha district.