Agniveer Update: The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General NS Raja Subramani, has announced a two-year extension to the service tenure of 'Agniveers'. This indicates that the armed forces value their contribution and require them to continue their service. Officials noted that the decision to remain in service will rest entirely with the individual Agniveer.
The move arrives at a time when 75 per cent of the first batch of Agniveers across the three armed services were set to be discharged in phases, starting from mid-November. Following the completion of their four-year tenure, more than 18,300 Agniveers were due to leave the armed forces by December 31.
Agniveer: A Long-Running Political Flashpoint
The Agniveer recruitment model, long a political flashpoint because it cuts the tenure of personnel below officer rank and offers them fewer service benefits, was introduced in 2022 to keep the armed forces young and combat-ready.
Under Agniveer, soldiers are recruited for a four-year term, with a provision to retain only 25 per cent of them in regular service for another 15 years.
First Batch by the Numbers
The scheme has been designed such that it can be modified at a later stage to keep some of those Agniveers with specific skills, according to the officials. There are currently about 270,000 Agniveers in the army, around 27,000 in the IAF, and about 21,000 in the navy, the officials said.
The three services have expressed satisfaction with the performance of Agniveers across roles.
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Agnipath was an entirely new scheme for the recruitment of military personnel compared to the long-existing scheme of recruitment that was scrapped by the NDA government in June 2022.
One point to note is that the first batch of Agniveers consisted of 19,000 soldiers in the army, 2,850 in the IAF, and 2,550 in the navy.
One note: the source text says the first batch had about 19,000 army Agniveers, 2,850 in the IAF and 2,550 in the navy, which adds up to roughly 24,400, so the figures are consistent.