The Union government has snuffed out a spark just when it was threatening to become a political fireball ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections early next year. By rewriting the Agnipath scheme weeks before the first batch of Agniveers recruited under it were to be released after four years of service, and allowing them to serve two more years, the Centre has averted the possibility of having thousands of 22-to-25-year-olds clamouring for jobs at a time unemployment is emerging as a major electoral plank in India’s most populous state.
On November 21, the first batch of Agniveers was scheduled to be discharged from the Navy. This was expected to be followed by releases from the Air Force in December and the Army in January. In all, three-fourths of about 24,400 first-year recruits were expected to be released under the scheme’s initial framework, designed to reduce the average age of the forces and rationalise the pension burden on the exchequer; the rest one-fourth were to be retained in regular service on merit.
Though the defence ministry adopted an ‘all-India, all-class’ hiring model for the scheme and has not published state-wise recruitment figures, indirect evidence shows young men and women from Uttar Pradesh formed the largest cohort. Their voices would have added substantial weight to about a third of those aged 15-29 in the state who are estimated to be not in education, employment or training.
It also helps NDA-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra which had proposed job quotas for Agniveers in various uniformed services at the Union home ministry’s suggestion. Given that one of the three criteria for granting extension, apart from fitness and service record, is willingness to continue, it remains to be seen how many Agniveers opt out of the central service and apply for state jobs. The strain such quotas would put on state resources was indicated when Maharashtra opted to offer a 10 percent quota in certain uniformed Group-C services, not 20 percent like in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh.
Though the move dodges a political bullet for now, the cannonball of defence service reforms remains undeterred. The original vision of upskilling disciplined, militarily-trained personnel after short-service careers for deployment in nation-building roles remains relevant. But there again, the question of jobs would need to answered at the end of training.