Rejig in Armed Forces recruitment; all personnel under ‘Agneepath’ to retire after 4 years

The Centre has proposed major changes for recruitment to the three Armed forces. Now all soldiers recruited under the Tour of Duty/Agneepath scheme shall be released from service after four years and then 25 per cent re-enlisted for full service.

With these changes, the Army is ready to restart its recruitment drive after a two-year break necessitated by the pandemic. The recruitment rallies should be held between August and December, media reports suggest.

The “tour of duty” model of employment to Armed Forces is meant for employing personnel below officer (PBOR) rank for four years, including six months of training. The Army needs 1,25,000 soldiers in the PBOR cadre. Every month’s delay in recruitment will increase this demand by 5,000 men.

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Armed Forces personnel recruited through the usual process are recruited for 20 years and they retire in their late 30s with a pension.

The earlier proposal regarding changes to Tour of Duty suggested that a specific number of recruits would be allowed to go after completion of three years of service. Another batch of recruits will be released after five years of service and about 25 per cent of them will be retained for full term at this stage of service. After intense deliberations, the final format of the Tour of Duty is said to be ready and will be implemented very soon. Accordingly, 100 per cent recruits will be released after four years and within 30 days of release, 25 per cent of them would be recalled and re-enlisted as soldiers with a fresh appointment letter. Besides, their past record of four years will not be considered while deciding their pay and pension. This way, the government will save a significant amount of salary that it would otherwise spend on paying the recruits.

There would be exceptions though. Certain recruits with technical nature of job and those in the Army Medical Corps can be retained beyond the four year contractual service considering their need to the three forces.

The Tour of Duty proposal also states that technical staff should be recruited directly from Industrial Training Institutes to save on time spent in training them.