12.8 lakh hopefuls for 46,000 positions — Army’s Agniveer applicants up nearly 10% from last year

12.8 lakh hopefuls for 46,000 positions — Army’s Agniveer applicants up nearly 10% from last year

New Delhi: With the Army set to conduct exams for the recruitment of Agniveers starting this month, there has been an increase in the number of applications received by the force compared to the previous year.

Sources in the defence and security establishment told ThePrint that a total of 12.8 lakh youth including men and women applicants have applied to become Agniveers. This is a nearly 10 percent increase from 11.3 lakh applicants in 2023.

The planned recruitment of Agniveers for the armed forces annually is roughly 46,000.

The central government introduced the Agnipath scheme in June 2022. Under this scheme, young men and women are recruited in the armed forces for four years. After completion of four years, only 25 percent of the recruits will be retained. Those aged between 17-and-a-half and 21 years are eligible to apply.

As reported by ThePrint earlier, the first batch of Army recruits inducted under the scheme, which passed out in August 2023, is deployed across India in different units and formations.

Across the country, the armed forces recruit Agniveers based on Recruitable Male Population (RMP), which differs from district to district in a state, thereby influencing numbers of the total number of recruits hired from a particular state. These numbers are determined through census data.

For the fiscal year 2024-2025, the Army will undertake a total of 96 recruitment rallies across the country.

Sources told ThePrint that focus will be on recruitment of women with 11 specially designated rallies for the selection of women Agniveers into the Corps of Military Police. Currently, the Army recruits women in Other Ranks (OR) only in the Corps of Military Police.

This year, the Army has scheduled an online combined examination that will span 174 locations across the country. The examination window is from April 22 to May 7.

For the Air Force, the strength of Agniveer Vayus under Agnipath scheme increased from 2,906 in June 2023 to 10,774 in February 2024, a source said. “The number of recruits is based on the airmen cadre deficiency. The number may therefore, fluctuate based upon the forecasted vacancies, actual intake and cadre deficiencies.”

For the Navy, three batches of Agniveers have completed training and the next batch will commence training later this month. A total of 7,856 Agniveers recruited for the Navy have passed out, of which, 6738 are men and 1,118 are women.

As reported by ThePrint, 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.

Besides tweaking the training schedule, another idea under consideration is the retention of 50 percent of Agniveers at the end of four years, compared to 25 percent now.

This could be done in specialised fields which require technical knowledge.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)