New Delhi: With batches of Agniveers now inducted into the armed forces and carrying out assigned duties, the military is collecting empirical data about them to ascertain how the Agnipath scheme can be tweaked for best results, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources in the defence and security establishment said once forces study the performance of Agniveers and analyse their findings in the context of current and future requirements, they will approach the government asking for tweaks in the scheme, which was introduced in 2022 and marked a major shift in recruitment for Indian armed forces.
On the performance of Agniveers inducted into the forces to date, sources said they have been doing well. Asked about murmurs of training issues, they added that performance improves over time.
“Let’s say if you test their firing capability after one month, their performance will be at X. But when you test them after three months, it goes up,” said one source.
A second source added, “Actual training for infantry soldiers has only been brought down by a week compared to earlier. Yes, the difference is much more in specialised areas where earlier training used to last for a year-and-a-half.”
It is also learnt that another idea under consideration is the retention of 50 percent of Agniveers at the end of four years, compared to 25 percent now.
This, said sources, could be high in specialised fields which require technical knowledge, adding that fine-tuning internal training structures could reap dividends in the longer run.
As reported by ThePrint earlier, Agnipath — the country’s most radical military recruitment policy — was the culmination of 254 meetings among members of the Indian defence establishment that lasted 750 hours. The scheme was initially meant as a pilot project, involving 100 officers and 1,000 soldiers, and was called the ‘Tour of Duty’.
According to former Army chief Gen Manoj Naravane’s yet-to-be-released book, the Army was “taken by surprise by this turn of events (Agnipath scheme), but for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a bolt from the blue”.
The Army headquarters is currently reviewing the book, excerpts of which published by news agency PTI stirred up a storm delaying its release.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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