Notwithstanding widespread protests against the Agnipath, the Union Government on Sunday not only ruled out rollback of the new military recruitment scheme, but also warned that the youths participating in violent agitations might find it difficult to take the benefit of it to enter the armed forces.
After Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had another meeting with the chiefs of Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, the senior officials of the three services addressed mediapersons in New Delhi and unveiled schedules of implementation of the scheme for recruitment of soldiers, brushing aside clamours for withdrawing the scheme.
Lt Gen Anil Puri, additional secretary at the Department of Military Affairs in the Ministry of Defence, told journalists that any candidate aspiring to join the Indian Army, Navy or Air Force as an ‘Agniveer’ through the scheme would have to aver while filling the enrolment form that she or he had never taken part in any arson or violent protest.
“There is no place for arson, vandalism or indiscipline in the armed forces. If there is any FIR against any candidate, she or he cannot be an ‘Agniveer’”, Lt Gen Puri told journalists, adding that the aspiring soldiers would have to go through police verification process before being recruited for four years.
He said that the aspiring youths should rather prepare physically for recruitment as the ‘Agniveers’, instead of wasting time by protesting against the new scheme, which was introduced to bring about the right blend of youthfulness and experience in the armed forces.
He also said that the intake of ‘Agniveers’ would go up from the initial 46,000 to 1,25,000 in near future.
The Indian Army will issue a draft notification for recruitment through Agnipath on Monday, followed by subsequent notifications issued by various recruitment units of the force from July 1. The recruitment rallies will take take place across the country in August, September and October and first batch of 25,000 ‘Agniveers’ would join the training programme in the first and second weeks of December followed by the second batch of 15,000 in February next year, Lt Gen C Bansi Ponnappa, adjutant general of the Indian Army, said.
The Indian Navy will come out with a broad guideline for the recruitment by June 25. The first batch of recruits – both men and women – will join the training programme by November 21, Vice Admiral Dinesh Tripathi, the chief of personnel of the Indian Navy, said.
The Indian Air Force will start registration process on June 24 and the process for online examination for phase one of the recruitment through Agnipath will begin on July 24. “We are planning to start the training for the first batch of recruits by December 30,” Air Marshall S K Jha, air officer-in-charge (personnel), said.
“We had lengthy discussions on how to make our forces young. We studied foreign forces too. We want young people. Youths are risk takers, they have passion. In them, ‘josh’ (enthusiasm) and ‘hosh’ (experience) are in equal proportions,” Lt General Puri said.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Saturday announced 10 per cent reservation of jobs for ‘Agniveers’. The other departments of the Union Government too over the past few days announced several sops to allay the apprehensions over the fate of the youths, who would be recruited to the armed forces through the new scheme, but would have to leave after four years. Though 25 per cent of the ‘Agniveers’ would be retained for regular service in the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, the spectre of uncertainty over the fate of the remaining 75 per cent triggered protests – mostly by job-seeking youths – in several states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.
Lt Gen Puri, however, said on Sunday that the sops had been planned well before the announcement of the Agnipath on June 14 and not announced in reaction to the protests against the scheme.