Chandigarh: The Haryana government has notified a fresh set of rules for former Agniveers who return home after four years in the armed forces. The revised rules entitle them to 20 percent horizontal reservation in uniformed posts like police constable, forest guard and jail warder. They will not have to appear for any entrance exam for these jobs.
The state’s Human Resources Department notified the orders on 16 October and uploaded it on the website of Haryana Chief Secretary the next day. The orders came into effect retrospectively, from 1 September 2026 onwards.
Only former Agniveers who are domiciled in Haryana can claim the benefit.
The quota is 20 percent for police constable (Home Department), constable in the India Reserve Battalion (IRB) and constable in the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF).
The same 20 percent quota applies to openings for forest guard, wildlife guard, mining guard, warder in the Prisons Department and fire operator-cum-driver in the Revenue and Disaster Management Department.
For other Group C posts, the reservation is 5 percent. For Group B posts linked to skill specialisation, it is 1 percent.
Within the 20 percent uniformed quota, the order lays out roster points by category. Deprived Scheduled Castes and Other Scheduled Castes get 2 percent each. BC-A gets 3 percent. BC-B and EWS get 2 percent each. Unreserved candidates get 9 percent.
The Group C quota of 5 percent is split as 1 percent for Scheduled Castes, 1 percent for BC-A and BC-B together, and 3 percent for Unreserved and EWS.
Former Agniveers will be exempt from all written exams for direct recruitment to Group C posts. The order also exempts them from the physical screening test. Further, it adds an exemption from the physical measurement test for the recently advertised posts of wildlife guard, IRB constable, SDRF constable and fire operator-cum-driver.
After joining, other service conditions under departmental rules will still apply to them.
If a suitable former Agniveer is not available for a post, it will be filled from the respective vertical category. Any shortfall caused by Agniveer appointments will be adjusted in future recruitment in the relevant category.
Ashok Chhabra, media coordinator to Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, said the policy would benefit a large number of youngsters from Haryana who return home after having served for four years in the armed forces. He said the exemptions from written exams and the physical screening test would ease their move from military to civilian jobs.
The letter is addressed to administrative secretaries, heads of departments, divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners, university registrars and the Registrar General of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. It asks them to carry out the instructions “in letter and spirit”.
Departments have been told to amend their service rules at once, as Cabinet approval has already been obtained.
Agniveers are youngsters recruited into the Army, Navy and Air Force under the Agnipath scheme. The Union Cabinet approved the scheme on 14 June 2022. Recruits join for four years, including training. At the end, up to 25 percent are to be kept on in regular service. The rest leave with a one-time exit package and have to find work elsewhere. The scheme replaced the earlier system of regular recruitment with long-term service and pension.
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Haryana’s stake
Haryana has long been among the states contributing a large number of recruits to the armed forces. Officials told CM Saini at a review meeting that 2,227 youngsters from the state were recruited as Agniveers in 2022-23 and 2,893 in 2023-24.
The scheme drew sharp opposition from the beginning, with protests held against it in several states. In Haryana, villages that serve as recruitment hubs for the armed forces took the change personally.
The Congress made it a major plank in the 2024 general election. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Rahul Gandhi said in Mahendragarh that the scheme would be thrown into the dustbin if the INDIA bloc came to power. The party carried the same attack into the Assembly campaign later that year.
The BJP government moved to blunt it. In July 2024, months before the Assembly elections, Saini announced 10 percent reservation for Agniveers in posts such as constable, mining guard, forest guard and jail warden. He also announced 5 percent in Group C civil posts and 1 percent in Group B. He added age relaxation, with five years for the first batch, and interest-free loans of up to Rs 5 lakh for those who want to start a business.
The BJP went on to form the government again. Saini later said the state would raise the police quota to 20 percent. The October 2026 order seeks to implement that promise.
Oppn calls for ‘scrapping Agnipath’
Haryana Congress president Rao Narendra Singh said the Agnipath scheme itself needed a relook. He said the state’s policy would not help much.
“I come from southern Haryana where almost every family used to send their children to the armed forces. Most of these used to be from very poor families. The youth could get into the Army by working hard on their physical fitness for years. However, all that has stopped now,” Rao told The Print over the phone Monday.
He alleged that crime had risen in Haryana because of heavy unemployment in rural areas, as job avenues in the armed forces and in the state government had shrunk.
Congress MP from Rohtak, Deepender Singh Hooda, who raised the Agniveer issue strongly during the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, said the scheme was good neither for the armed forces nor for the people.
“Several retired senior officers of the armed forces have said on record that the Agniveer scheme of recruitment is detrimental for the forces. People have also opposed the policy. It should be scrapped immediately, rather than bringing any policy for the former Agniveers,” Hooda told ThePrint over the phone Monday.
On the state’s new policy, Hooda said the government already had a policy for ex-servicemen. But everyone knows how few ex-servicemen actually benefit from it, he said.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: L-G VK Saxena approves 20% quota for ex-Agniveers in Delhi Police, recruitment age limit relaxed