Nirupama Subramaniam,
Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen BS Raju on Monday said the Agneepath recruitment scheme has been thoroughly discussed and if any changes are needed in it will be done in the coming 4-5 years. Army issued notification for mandatory online registration of all Agneepath job candidates after which our affiliate newspaper ‘The Indian Express’ interviewed him in which he said, ‘Agneepath scheme is a pilot project. This scheme marks a major change in recruitment in the armed forces and everyone needs to adapt to this change.
Violent agitation incidents have been reported from different parts of the country against the Agneepath Yojana scheme. The youth who were waiting to join the army from 2020 are angry with this scheme which came after two years. Youth have been furious against the new scheme, which will only be in limited numbers, and does not guarantee permanent jobs, or pensions and health. There are also many benefits for those who exit three quarters of Agniveers after four years.
Lt Raju said, “Anything in the new recruitment method, percentage of recruitment extension or any other nature of recruitment that needs to be changed, will be done at the end of four to five years. Once we have proper data then it will be easy for us. Right now we have a policy which has been well thought out and which we are implementing.”
He said that we will not be able to make any predictions as to what can actually be done. Based on our experience of this, in four to five years, necessary changes will be brought in. ,
Raju said that the regiment change would be very slow and there were no plans to eliminate the homogeneous units immediately. “We’re in no hurry to change anything with these rows.” Responding to the criticisms, he said that ‘all-India all sections’ would undermine the cohesion of combat units hitherto built on uniformity of recruiting personnel.
He said, “I do not agree with your argument that this policy is being made. Because the changes and announcements that have taken place are from 21 to 23 years, all the rest are some proposals coming from different establishments to further strengthen the program that the government has announced to take care of 75 percent. people who are leaving. So this is an add-on that the government had already thought of (providing).”