Indus Valley Times

NEW DELHI,JUNE 20: With the general situation across the nation easing a tad after days of violent protests, the government fielded senior tri-services officers as well as from the defence ministry to rebut criticism, convey that the short-term Agnipath recruitment scheme was very much on, and to indicate a broad timeline of its rollout.

Fielding questions at a press conference on whether the government proposed to review or roll back the scheme, Lt Gen Puri, additional secretary in the Department of Military Affairs, shot back, “No, why should there be a rollback?”

He said the whole objective was reduce the average age of the personnel in uniform. “I will give you an example. Do you know how many casualties are reported just for health purposes from high altitude areas? Do read about it, then you would come to know why young is important,” he said.

Putting the protesters on notice, Lt Gen Puri warned that they will find no place in the Agnipath scheme. “The Army’s foundation is discipline. There is no space for arson or vandalism. Every individual will give a certificate that they were not part of the protest or vandalism. Police verification is 100%; no one can join without that. If any FIR is lodged against them, they can’t join,” he said.

As for allowances, Agniveers will get them at par with regular soldiers. Also the family of any Agniveer sacrificing his/her life in the service of the nation will get compensation of Rs 1 crore. While many experts have wondered why the defence ministry did not see the need to run a pilot project to test the idea, Lt Gen Puri suggested the first batch of 46,000 hires was meant to do just that — analyse the outcome to tweak the scheme if needed.

“In the next 4-5 years, our intake will be 50,000-60,000 and will increase to 90,000-1 lakh subsequently. We’ve started small at 46,000 to analyse the scheme…and to build up infra capacity. Our intake of Agniveers will go up to 1.25 lakh in the near future,” he said. Addressing the press meet, Air Marshal S K Jha said, “Agniveer batch 1 registration will start from June 24 and from July 24, phase 1 of the online examination process would start. Training would commence by December 30.”

As for the Army, Lt Gen Bansi Ponappa said a draft notification on the hiring will be issued on Monday. In all, 83 recruitment rallies would be organised across the country. Vice Admiral Dinesh Tripathi said the first batch of naval recruits — both male and female — would join training  by November 21. In the first batch, 3,000 Agniveers will be inducted into the Navy, ofw whom 20% would be women, said sources.

-TNIE