Amid the violent protest against the Agnipath scheme across the country, the Army Chief General said he will be announcing the schedule of the recruitment process shortly. Army Chief General Manoj Pande said the new Agnipath recruitment scheme will provide an opportunity to youth who despite the pandemic were preparing to join the defence forces.
“The schedule of the recruitment process will be announced shortly. We call upon our youth to avail this opportunity for joining the Indian Army as Agniveers,” Pande said.
Concurrently, the protests against the scheme have intensified for the second consecutive day in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Telangana, and other states.
Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Renu Devi’s house got attacked at Bettiah. In Secunderabad, protesters pelted stones at police in which 15 people got injured. On the other hand, protesters set fire to Howrah Express. Four bogies of the Ara Patna passenger train were also torched at Kulharia station.
The Haryana government has suspended mobile internet and SMS services for 24 hours in Ballabhgarh area of the Faridabad district as the protest turns violent.
Separately, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has vouched for the Centre’s decision to approve the ‘Agnipath’ scheme and said it gives a golden opportunity to the youth to join the defence system and serve the country.
Agnipath Scheme was recently launched by the government in an effort to bring a change in the recruitment process of the Armed Forces. The scheme allows the recruitment of soldiers in the Army, Navy, and Air Force largely on a four-year short-term contractual basis.
Under the scheme, youths between the ages of 17 and a half and 23 years will be inducted into the three services. The new recruit will be called ‘Agniveers’. After completion of the four-year tenure, 25% of the recruits will be retained for regular service, based on organisational requirements and policies promulgated by the armed forces from time to time.
The monthly salary of an “Agniveer” in the first year of employment would be ₹30,000 and the in-hand amount would be ₹21,000 as ₹9,000 would go to a corpus with an equal contribution from the government.
Subsequently, the monthly salary in the second, third and fourth years will be ₹33,000, ₹36,500, and ₹40,000.
Each “Agniveer” will get an amount of ₹11.71 lakh as the “Seva Nidhi Package” and it will be exempted from income tax.
The recruitment process under the Agnipath scheme is likely to start in 90 days.
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