Military chiefs brief PM Modi about Agnipath rollout

Wednesday 29th June 2022 07:12 EDT
 
 

The three service chiefs during their meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi briefed him about the ongoing rollout of the Agnipath scheme and said that the scheme will not affect or entail any change in the existing systems of recruitment for soldiers and will not create any impact on their operational readiness.

Gen Manoj Pande, Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari and Adm R Hari Kumar, during their separate meetings, apprised the PM Modi about the recruitment schedule and the steps being taken for successful implementation of the scheme under which 46,000 Agniveers will begin training in November-December this year. While a spate of protest have been witnessed in last few weeks against short term recruitment in all the three military services with 75 per cent of Agniveers to be discharged from each batch after a four- year tenure.

Earlier in the day, additional secretary in the defence ministry’s department of military affairs, Lt Gen Anil Puri, contended there was “credible” information that many youngsters in several parts of the country had returned to “physical activities and exercises to prepare for recruitment as soldiers after a lot of misinformation and rumours about the Agnipath scheme had been dispelled.

Now, through the Agnipath scheme, we want to bring down the average age of soldiers to 26 (in six to seven years)”. Around 75% of our units in the Army are already all-India, all-class (except for single-class regiments like the Sikh, Gorkha, Dogra, Garhwal, Jat and the like, which will continue). The regimentation will remain unchanged. Our attempt is to make the recruitment more broad-based,” he said.


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