Roadblocks were faced over the last two years in the Army recruitments due to the pandemic, vice chief of Army staff, Lieutenant General BS Raju said on Wednesday, as he spoke on the timeline of recruitments for 'Agnipath', a special military recruitment plan that has been unveiled by the government.
"Ninety days from now, first of the recruitment rally will take place. About 180 days from now, first of the recruits will be in our training centres. And about a year from now, we'll have first of the Agniveers coming into our battalions," he said while speaking to news agency ANI.
"The average age of a soldier is about 32-33 years. With Agnipath, in around 8-10 years, we'll be able to lower profile of soldier to about 26 years. It'll make Army fitter. We'll be able to handle more challenging situations in difficult areas that troops operate in," he was further quoted as saying. "Beauty of this scheme is that it's going to be introduced in a very slow manner. In the first year, we're getting around 40,000 recruits. These recruits will be selected pan-India, and will go through six months of training. Thereafter they'll serve for 3.5 years. At the end of 4 years, we're looking at retaining 25 per cent of the people who we think have the attitude and aptitude to stay in the Army."
The new recruitment scheme was unveiled by defence minister Rajnath Singh along with service chiefs on Tuesday. It allows "patriotic and motivated youth to serve in the Armed Forces for a period of four years," the government said in a statement.
{{/usCountry}}The new recruitment scheme was unveiled by defence minister Rajnath Singh along with service chiefs on Tuesday. It allows "patriotic and motivated youth to serve in the Armed Forces for a period of four years," the government said in a statement.
{{/usCountry}}The plan "has been designed to enable a youthful profile of the Armed Forces," it further added, and underlined: "It is envisaged that average age profile of Indian Armed forces would come down by about 4-5 years by implementation of this scheme."
Earlier on Wednesday, home minister Amit Shah tweeted: "Agnipath Yojana is a visionary and welcome decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the bright future of the youth. In this context, today, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has decided to give priority to Agniveers who complete 4 years under this scheme for recruitment in CAPFs (central armed police forces) and Assam Rifles.”
(With inputs from ANI)