It takes seven to eight years for a soldier, sailor and airman to become fully combat-ready, with the requisite hands-on experience, but 75% of the Agniveers from each batch will be demobilised after four years under the scheme rolled out in June 2022.
Indian Navy and Indian Air Force will be highly impacted due to the Agniveer scheme as the tenure of the officials terminates after four years. While this will especially hit the IAF and Navy, which are more technology-intensive, the Army will also be impacted. “The very nature of warfare is changing with rapid technological advances. Why should the armed forces spend precious time and money training Agniveers to handle sophisticated weapon systems, missiles and machinery when the bulk of them will go after four years,” a top officer told TOI.
Maths of Agniveer:
Moreover, the over-stretched Army is already facing a shortage of combat-ready soldiers, which will get further accentuated with each passing year without tweaks in the Agnipath scheme. Around 60,000 soldiers retire every year, while the annual intake of Agniveers is limited to 40,000 at present.
Given that the govt is unlikely to scrap the radical Agnipath scheme, which is primarily aimed at slashing the ballooning salary and pension bills, the armed forces want the retention rate of Agniveers to be raised to at least 50-60% from the existing 25%, among other tweaks, based on surveys and feedback from their units.
‘Economics take a back seat to national security’
Admiral K B Singh, who retired as the Navy chief in Nov 2021, in a post on ‘X’ on Thursday, said, “The only motivation driving Agnipath is reducing the pension bill. The fact that this scheme will degrade combat effectiveness is known to all who understand national security.”Another former Navy chief, Admiral Arun Prakash (retd), in turn, said “Economics (must) take a back seat to national security. The sole litmus test for any change or reform in the military must be: “Does it enhance or degrade combat effectiveness?”
There should be concern about the “huge operational handicap” being imposed on combat units forced to accept “barely trained recruits fit only for sentry duties”, he added. Agniveers, incidentally, receive a truncated basic training of six months instead of the around 11 months for regular soldiers earlier.
Other military chiefs and top officers also criticise Agnipath on several counts. Former Army chief Gen M M Naravance, who retired in April 2022, of course, has already said the Army had initially proposed only “a limited number (10%)” of jawans should be enrolled for the short-term service.
“There are now two classes of soldiers, the Agniveers and the regular ones with higher salaries and annual leaves as well as pensions. There is also unhealthy competition emerging among Agniveers to prove their suitability to be retained as regular soldiers. If the Constitution can be amended over 100 times, what is the harm in tweaking Agnipath?” a military officer said to ToI.
(with ToI inputs)
