Glaring lack of communication on agnipath scheme
The volcano of anger that suddenly erupted days after a radical policy of short-term recruitment to defence forces was unveiled was an index on how serious the issue of unemployment is across the country. Recent government data on the drop in unemployment rates notwithstanding, jobless youth with an uncertain future are a powder keg waiting to explode. Defence hires were frozen for the last two years due to the pandemic, so there is understandable fury among the aspirants. Yet, the waves of arson attacks on trains and the destruction of other public and private properties across the country cannot be condoned. The argument that a government that has a brute majority in Parliament is tone deaf to any other language lacks merit. Creating social unrest and damaging public property is as reprehensible as the recent bulldozer justice by the UP government. Peaceful mass mobilisation is the only acceptable way to talk to power.
The government sharply recoiled at the ferocity of the agitations and hurriedly announced a clutch of amendments and quotas to defuse the situation. On one level it showed poor anticipation of the backlash while on another, it indicated the scheme was not fully thought through. The scheme is aimed at reducing the defence pension burden that has decidedly become unsustainable. Its primary purpose is to make the military nimble and reduce its average age. There is divergence of opinion on the short training stint and discharge of 75% of the recruits, called Agniveers, after four years of service. But similar models are successfully running elsewhere in the world.
While critics say it should have been tried out as a pilot project first, the Army says the first round of recruitments of 46,000 Agniveers itself is experimental. Based on the lessons learnt, it intends to scale up the intake to 1.25 lakh annually. The problem then is the lack of proper communication with stakeholders and taking them on board in a transparent manner. In the wake of the apprehensions widely shared by netas and experts, including NDA allies, the government could even now call them for a meeting to pick their mind and sharpen the scheme. As for the youth, creating a mechanism for preferential job opportunities upon discharge would go a long way in assuaging their anxiety.