The Cabinet Committee on Security has finally approved opening of a Second Officers Training Academy (OTA) at Gaya. The approval has been given in a meeting of the committee today. fachcha.com reported on 01-12-2009 that the government was seriously considering to open another OTA to fill available vacancies of Army Officers. On OTA is already existing in Chennai. The proposed new OTA will provide training for 250 officers annually. Later on it will be upgraded to its full capacity to train 750 officers.

The OTA provides training to those candidates who are selected for the Short Service Commission (SSC) in the armed forces through Combined Defence Services (CDS) examination, conducted by UPSC.
Though the National Defence Academy had attracted bigger number of candidates than the number of seats available in the NDA but on the contrary, OTA had witnessed a downfall in the number of candidates against the available number of seat. The data, made available by the Ministry of Defence, says that except 2008 the NDA has attracted more candidates against its seat 390. In 2009 it has reached to 500 against 390. But OTA has been getting lesser candidates against available seats in the Academy in the last four years. In 2009, only 315 candidates joined the OTA against the available 700 seats. This is just 45% of the total number of available seats in the Academy.