Terming ‘Agnipath’ scheme as the “only progressive step” to make the Army younger, a senior military officer on Sunday ruled out any roll back of the scheme and said those applying for it should give an undertaking that they did not take part in the protests. The three Services announced the recruitment schedule for the first batch of Agniveers, with training set to commence by the year end.
“There is no space for indiscipline in the armed forces. No space for arson and vandalism. Every individual who aspires to join Agnipath has to give an undertaking and pledge that they have not taken part in any protest or arson… There will be police verification after that. No one can come into the armed forces without police verification,” said Lt. Gen. Anil Puri, Additional Secretary in the Department of Military Affairs, addressing a tri-service press conference which came after a meeting of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with the three Service Chiefs, held for the second consecutive day.
Age profile of forces
Lt. Gen. Puri said that efforts to bring down the average age of the armed forces first came about three decades ago and was also reiterated by the Kargil review committee but has been unsuccessful. With Agnipath scheme, he said the average age profile will come down from 32 to 26 years in line with the age profile of major armies worldwide.
Stressing that future wars will be technology driven and so the need for a younger profile, he said we were not getting an opportunity in 30 years to undertake this transformative reform. Noting that the recruitment was not held for two years due to COVID pandemic, Lt. Gen. Puri said “God and nature” gave us this opportunity to build a younger army.
Whether “god heard or nature heard” we got this “golden opportunity”, he said otherwise they have been waiting since 1984 to reduce the age profile.
On Agniveers, he said their allowances will be the same as regular soldiers and also there will be no discrimination.
Recruitment schedule
Air Marshal S.K. Jha, Air Officer-in-Charge Personnel, said the notification and registration process for enrolment of the first batch will go live online from June 24 through the well-established online system of the Indian Air Force. “From July 24 online examination will start and by end December, we will enrol the first batch and on December 30, the training will commence," he said.
Navy’s Chief of Personnel Vice Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi said they have already started working on the process and the advertisement will reach the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting by June 25 and the process will start within one month. “By November 21, the first batch of Agniveers will report at our training centre INS Chilka. The Agniveers will be gender neutral. Women will also be inducted,” he said.
Of the 3000 Agniveers to be inducted by the Navy this year, there will be women, Vice Admiral Tripathi said, and added, “We are working out the numbers based on the number of ships they can be accommodated in and the facilities in training establishments.”
The Navy already has women officers serving on aircraft and onboard warships, he noted.
The Navy is looking at recruiting upto 600 women Agniveers; depending on the modalities, they would be posted on warships as well, it has been learnt.
For the Army, the terms and conditions and eligibility criteria have already been put up on the Army website, said Lt. Gen. C.B. Ponnappa, Adjutant General of Army. “On July 1, we will have notification from all recruitment offices. The first rallies will start in the first week on August to November. In two batches, induction will be done into training centres,” he explained.
Rallies planned across all states
The Army which plans to induct 40,000 Agniveers in the first batch will recruit around 25,000 Agniveers by the first half of December and the remaining by the first half of February 2023. For this, 83 rallies are planned across the country covering all states, Lt. Gen. Ponnappa added.
Officials also explained that the intake of Agniveers would be progressively increased in the next few years. Intake of recruits under Agnipath will increase from 46,000 annually in the first four years, to 90,000 in the fifth year to 125,000 from the sixth year.
On June 14, the government announced the Agnipath scheme for recruitment of soldiers into the armed forces for four years, doing away with the current process and the age bracket for new recruits was fixed at 17 ½ to 21 years of age. This led to massive protests and violence across several states and late on Thursday evening, the Defence Ministry announced a one time upper age limit relaxation in the recruitment process in the Agnipath scheme for 2022 to 23 years, citing the fact that it was not possible to undertake recruitment during the last two years due to the pandemic.
All recruitment in the forces for soldiers, sailors and airmen will now be through this route. Agniveers on completion of four years will get an opportunity to join regular cadre, and upto 25% would be selected through another recruitment process.
In the last few days, several ministries and government departments announced measures to accommodate Agniveers in various avenues post the four year stint, amid violent protests by youth across the country against the new scheme.
