Into the line of fire, and back

Border forces may recruit Agniveers, send them to Army, and take them back

- BRIGADIER P.K.G. MISHRA

Till two years ago, ‘Agnipath’ was the title of a poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and of a film made famous by his son. Now it denotes a tour-of-duty scheme by which the armed forces recruit soldiers, and is listed as one of the many reasons that stopped the BJP from getting majority in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The Agnipath scheme, by which Agniveers are being inducted into the armed forces, was launched in 2022 primarily with an aim of reducing the expenditure on defence pension. At that point of time India had about 27 lakh ex-servicemen and seven lakh widows, making a total of about 34 lakh defence pensioners. With about 60,000 soldiers retiring every year, the figure today should be over 35 lakh. Soldiers, other than officers, retire between the age of 35 and 52 years depending on the rank they retire at. They retire after having served for 17 to 32 years. With the average life expectancy in India having gone up to around 70 years, an average retiree draws pension for more than 30 years. In other words, most of them are paid more when they are not working than when they were working. Hence, the government thought of reducing this annual financial outlay.