Agnipath scheme will help reduce age profile of armed forces: Lt Gen

CHENNAI: Lt General A Arun, General Commanding Officer, Dakshin Bharat Area, on Wednesday said that through 'Agnipath' scheme it is an opportunity for youngsters to serve in the Armed forces through which the age profile of the armed forces will reduce.

"At present the average age in armed forces is 32 and the 'Agnipath' scheme will help reduce the age profile thus making an optimal balance of youth and experience.The scheme will infuse more youngsters into Army, Navy and Air Force and will train them for improved battle preparedness", said Arun, while addressing the media.

Central government launched the ambitious 'Agnipath' scheme to recruit youngsters in the age group of 17.5 to 21 into the armed forces.

According to the scheme, the recruited youngsters called 'Aginveers' will be given training and a job for four years after which they were relieved from the system. The interested 'Agniveers' after four years will be recruited and the recruitment will be limited to 25 percent of the total intake.

However, there were criticisms that after four years the trained 'Agniveers' would be left jobless at their prime age of mid twenties. Replying to a question on the future of the remaining 75 percent of the 'Agniveers' who are not recruited back, Arun said that the 'Agniveers' are paid well and with close to zero expenditure they can save at least Rs 10,000 per month even if going by conservative calculations. Apart from that they are paid a corpus of Rs 11.71 lakh after four years of their service and with that the total funds left for them will be around Rs 20 lakh with which they can start small businesses and can provide employment to few others.

When asked that the scheme does not encourage higher education rather than encourage earning at a very young age, Arun replied that 'Agniveers' even during their four years service can study through distance education and even the armed forces encourage education and so by the end of four years 'Agniveers' would have completed a degree.

Arun also said that jawans will no longer be recruited through direct recruitment rallies and only the 'Agniveers' will be inducted as jawans after four years.

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