New Delhi: The Centre had recently launched the Agnipath scheme, under which, soldiers will be recruited in the armed forces for a tenure of four years.
This new plan introduced by the centre was ostensibly launched to curb the skyrocketing pension bills and also to increase the efficiency of the forces.
The government will provide the option of extending the service for a full 15-year tenure to only 25 percent of all recruits, solely based on their performance.
Hence, these 25 percent soldiers will have to be the most dedicated, determined and best performing soldiers.
On the other hand, the remaining 75 percent will be asked to leave with a substantial severance.
However, they will get full assistance from the centre in starting new careers or higher education.
The Ministry of Home Affairs said the soldiers, to be called Agniveers, will be preferred during the recruitment drive for Central Armed Police Force (CAPF).
Several states have promised that those discharged from the armed forces will be preferred for police recruitment.
As per reports, the remuneration of Agniveers will be hiked by around 10 per cent every year.
Army Chief General Manoj Pande said that the first Agniveer will be inducted into the army by December 2022.
The Army Chief added that the first batch will be deployed to operational and non-operational areas mid-next.
According to reports, the monthly salary of an Agniveer soldier for the first year will be Rs 30,000 but, they will only receive Rs 21,000 as Rs 9,000 per month will be deducted from their salaries on a monthly basis and this deducted amount will go to a corpus.
Agniveer soldiers will be paid around Rs 11.77 lakh, lump-sum, at the time of their exit after four years.
The corpus will be called Seva Nidhi and the Seva Nidhi Package will be exempted from income tax.
The overall salary will be Rs 33,000 for the second year and 30 percent will be deducted for Seva Nidhi Package.
The salary will be Rs 36,500 for the third year while it will be Rs 40,000 for the fourth year. It is to be noted that the soldiers will not be entitled to gratuity.
There will not be any provident fund deductions because the Seva Nidhi resembles the employee provident fund scheme. The soldiers will get a free insurance cover of Rs 48 lakh for the duration of their service period.
Meanwhile, in a latest development, the Ministry of Home Affairs has decided to grant a 10 percent reservation for recruitment in CAPFs & Assam Rifles for Agniveers.
The MHA has also decided to give a three years relaxation in the upper age limit for the Agniveers to be recruited in the two forces.
The Home Ministry also said that the age relaxation will be for 5 years beyond the upper age limit for the 1st batch of Agniveer.
The information was shared by the Home Minister's Office (HMO) on the morning of June 18 following the widespread protests across the country.
"The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) decides to reserve 10% vacancies for recruitment in CAPFs and Assam Rifles for Agniveers," the MHA tweeted.
"The MHA also decides to give 3 years age relaxation beyond the prescribed upper age limit to Agniveers for recruitment in CAPFs & Assam Rifles. Further, for the first batch of Agniveer, the age relaxation will be for 5 years beyond the prescribed upper age limit," it further added.
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