The Indian Army on Monday issued the first notification for the recruitment of Agniveers under the Agnipath scheme with the registration process set to begin in July this year. Amid this and the nationwide protests against the Centre's scheme, Lieutenant General B S Raju, Vice Chief of the Army Staff, on Monday, clarified that the Agnipath recruitment scheme is "well thought out".
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He also said that if any changes in the scheme are required, they will be done at the end of four or five years. During an interview with the Indian Express, Lt Gen Raju called the Agnipath scheme a "pilot project" and said that it marks a "fundamental change" in recruitment into the armed forces.
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Lt Gen Raju was quoted as saying, "The methodology of recruitment, percentages of retention-extension, anything of that nature, if there is a requirement to be tweaked, it will be done at the end of four to five years, once we have some reasonable data. Right now, we have a policy that has been well thought through, and which we are implementing."
He further added, "What we are doing is actually a pilot project… the rate at which it is happening, yes, it is deemed as a pilot project. We may not have called it a pilot project. But this, it’s a work-in-progress. So what we are doing is actually some kind of a pilot project, but with very clear timelines put in place. The government has repeatedly said that they are amenable to modifications based on our experience."
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Explaining why he called the Agnipath scheme a "fundamental change", the Vice Army Chief said, "So, there is a need for all of us to absorb the change. It is to give (a young person) an opportunity to serve the nation for four years and exit and do something more. It is not an end in itself,” he said."
