BENGALURU: Fondly called Madras Sappers or Thambis (younger brother in Tamil), formed in 1780, they have 43 battle honours and 14 theatre honours. One of the oldest regiments of the Indian Army, the Madras Engineer Group (MEG) & Centre gives the Army around 5,000 trained soldiers every two years.
The first engineers to set foot on the Siachen Glacier, they are the senior-most of the three Groups of Corps of Engineers in the country.
These combatant troops after two-and-a-half years of training — 19 weeks of basic military training that involves drills, weapon training, obstacle training with smoke candles, trenches, ropes, ladders, ditches, rough terrain — move on to watermanship training, an advanced military training for 22 weeks, which is done at Ulsoor Lake. K K Pittamalla, instructor at MEG, said, “They have seven periods of 45 minutes each, every day, which include physical training activities like flat foot walk, vertical rope climbing, five-metre shuttle, sprint action, landing ditch, chin up bar, sit up bar, sep up, wall ladder, resistance exercise, hyper extension, beams and sand track exercises.”
Brigadier R K Sachdeva, Commandant, MEG & Centre, said, “During his initial 41 weeks of training, a young civilian boy is transformed into a hardened soldier.”Building bridges, floats, embarking and de-boarding assault boats within minutes, rafts that can carry trucks/jeeps during relief and rescue operations, are field training tasks, the troops are made to do. Ulsoor Lake has islands for this training purpose named Assay Gunj, Pasina Gunj, Buffalo Gunj and Meanee Gunj named after battle honours.
Here, (in pic bottom right) recruits are seen readying a 24 tonne raft ferry that is supposed to carry a Tatra truck. As soon as the truck is on the raft, it is merely upon five jawans to push the raft into the water while holding onto the jagged-ragged edges of the frames fitted on the raft. One of them pokes the shore with a stick and tries to pull away with all his might. All this is done within a target time frame. Another raft carries a jeep.
Lt Col Ravi Sunhare, Chief Instructor, said, “During floods, cyclones and earthquakes, they are dealing with civilians who don’t have equipment or skills to get out of a trap. We prepare the fauji for every situation including combat situations in water.” The tough training regime is true to one of the messages put out by the Corps at the Centre that reads, “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”