Experts divided on Cong’s declaration of scrapping Agnipath scheme

The Congress party’s promise in its manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections that it will scrap the Agnipath scheme and bring back the legacy recruitment model if voted to power has left experts divided.
“Congress will scrap the Agnipath Scheme and return to the normal recruitment processes followed by the Army, Navy and Air Force that will guarantee economic and social security for our soldiers,” the Opposition party said in a chapter on national security.
The Agnipath model marked a major departure from the military’s decades-old recruitment system that was discontinued when the National Democratic Alliance government announced the new scheme in June 2022. It seeks to recruit soldiers for only four years, with a provision to retain 25% of them in regular service.
Those recruited under the new scheme are called Agniveers.
“We can continue with the Agnipath scheme and carry out modifications if needed. The government has said there is scope for modifications depending on the requirements of the armed forces,” said military affairs expert Lieutenant General Satish Dua, who retired in 2018 as the senior-most military officer handling all tri-service affairs.
India on June 14, 2022, announced the Agnipath scheme replacing the legacy system in an attempt to reduce the armed forces’ pension burden, lower the age profile of the armed forces, ensure a fitter military and create a technically skilled war fighting force capable of meeting future challenges.
It sparked widespread protests and forced a concerted outreach by the government to scotch apprehensions about the scheme.
Returning to the legacy recruitment model may not be feasible, said strategic affairs expert Lieutenant General DS Hooda (retd).
“However, we should look at reducing the percentage of Agniveers in service. About 25-30% can be recruited under the Agnipath scheme and the remaining should be selected following the legacy model. We can keep fine-tuning the model as per our needs,” he added.
Agniveers draw an annual salary of ₹4.76 lakh in the first year of service and ₹6.92 lakh in the fourth, get a non-contributory insurance cover of ₹48 lakh, and an additional ex-gratia payment of ₹44 lakh for death attributable to service. Those released after four years will get ₹11.71 lakh as Seva Nidhi severance package, including ₹5.02 lakh contributed by them during their service. They will also have job quotas in different government organisations, paramilitary forces and other departments. They will, however, not be eligible for pension.
Agnipath is a hare-brained scheme that needs to be scrapped considering that national security is paramount, said a former service chief, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“Without getting into the politics of it, the Agnipath scheme should have never been implemented. It’s in the best interest of the country to return to the previous tried-and-tested recruitment model. As an experiment, you can still recruit around 25% soldiers for short-term and see how they perform before deciding the next course,” he said.
Soldiers recruited through the legacy recruitment system serve the armed forces for about 20 years before they retire in their late 30s with pension.
In November 22, several Opposition MPs flagged concerns about the Agnipath model for short-term induction of soldiers and demanded that it be rolled back during a briefing by defence minister Rajnath Singh to the Parliamentary consultative committee on defence on the controversial scheme.
The Agnipath model has been implemented smoothly and the three services are not facing any issue, said a serving army officer, who asked not to be named. “The scheme can be tweaked if needed. Everyone needs to work together to ensure the best results,” he said.
The army has got positive feedback on Agniveers from its units and the recruitment scheme was finalised after extensive consultations, army chief General Manoj Pande said in January 2024.
Pande’s comments came weeks after his predecessor General Manoj Mukund Naravane (retd) created a stir by revealing that the Agnipath scheme caught the army by surprise and was a bolt out of the blue for the air force and the navy. Naravane’s take on the scheme figured in the excerpts of his yet-to-be released autobiography titled Four Stars of Destiny.
The excerpts of the memoirs, reviewed by news agency PTI, revealed that Naravane sounded out the Prime Minister about the about the ‘tour of duty’ scheme for the short-term induction of soldiers in the army in early 2020, but months later the PMO came out with a formulation with a wider scope to include all the three services. He has written in the book that the army’s initial view was that 75% of the personnel to be recruited could be retained while 25% should be released.
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