New Delhi, Nov 4: In a major modification to the Agnipath Scheme, the government today announced that 25 per cent of Agniveers will be enrolled as regular soldiers after completion of their four-year tenure and the remaining will have an option of two-year extension.
The amendments were approved by the Union Cabinet today, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General NS Raja Subramani said at a press conference here.
The army currently has around 270,000 Agniveers, the IAF around 27,000 and the navy roughly 21,000.
“After completing this two-year engagement period, all willing Agniveers will be enrolled in the Armed Forces, subject to objective selection criteria.”
Their remunerations will also be increased to Rs 43,500 in the first year of extension and to Rs 45,000 in the second year of the extension.
The move comes weeks before the first batch of Agniveers is slated to be released in phases starting mid-November.
Over 18,300 Agniveers were to exit the armed forces by December 31 after completing their four-year term.
The Agnipath scheme, which cuts the tenure of personnel below officer rank and offers them fewer service benefits, was introduced in 2022 and has been subject of intense criticism from former officers of the Defence forces.
Under Agnipath, soldiers are recruited for a four-year term, with a provision to retain only 25% of them in regular service for another 15 years.
The 18,300 soldiers, who were to be released this year, account for three-fourths of the 24,400 recruits inducted into the army, air force and navy in the first round of recruitment. The first batch comprised around 19,000 Agniveers in the army, 2,850 in the IAF and 2,550 in the navy, according to official data.
Officials earlier said the scheme could be tweaked in the future to retain more Agniveers with specialised skills.
The Agnipath model marked a major departure from the military’s decades-old recruitment system, which the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government replaced when it announced the new scheme in June 2022. (NVI)
