Everything seems great and advantageous-people will get jobs, more salary, benefits, one-time amount, bachelor's degree and preference in other jobs. Then why are people protesting? Why is a big debate happening all over the country over this Agneepath scheme?
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If you haven't yet read the first part of the blog, please do. 1st minus is medical benefits, no pension or gratuity. To clarify 11 lakhs is a one-time amount that any agniveer will get after completing 4 years of service.
In case if the agniveer dies, benefits will not be same as that of a regular Indian army jawan. It is basically creating a class difference as in adhoc and permanent employees.
No security or Settlement
Comparing it to SSC-10-14 years of service which is also not considered a fair scheme, it does not facilitate any permanent security or settlement which is a major factor of people looking for these jobs. There are thousands of cases pending in our courts regarding pension issues of SSC jawans. Not comparing but retirement plan of a 3rd grade government employee is even better than this.
No clarity over recruitment mode
Government has not yet clarified whether this scheme will run in parallel or it will be the only mode of recruitment. As per reports, this will be the only recruitment mode now for Jawans.
Job Security for 4 years only
As of now, candidates prepare for the army for at least 2-3 years so that once they are recruited, they have some job security(at least for 10 years). Bharti Rally which is basically a physical test-part of the recruitment process is really tough. This may decline the keen interest of candidates preparing for army.
Just to give you exact idea, there hasn't been any recruitment since 2019 for Indian Army. Reason being the lockdown and COVID-19. Elections and political rallies didn't help spread covid, army recruits must have done that. This is one of the biggest reasons why the protest started. In the duration of 2017-2019, 1.65 Lac army personnel were recruited. This number should be the same for 2020-2022 or even higher since same number of Jawans retire every year. There is no plan of recovering this shortage. Only 11,500 jawans will be recruited after 4 years(25% of 46000).
The policy makers were quite aware of this. Basically the Agneepath scheme focuses on 2 motives-
A. Decrease in expense of manpower in defense.
B. With the residue money, focus on better weapons and technology.
Both these motives can be accomplished with the scheme but there are lot of cons too. Let us know in comments what you think of the scheme and any suggestions if you have.
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Please go through the 1st blog to find out better side of the scheme.
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