From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Gujarat Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil on Monday made out a strong case for withdrawal of the Agnipath recruitment scheme for the Armed Forces at a Parliamentary Consultative Committee meeting of the Defence Ministry convened by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Coming from the rural background, he said whenever a youth from a village joins the Army, the whole village honours him since he would work for 17 years, brightening the village’s name with promotions. However, in the Agnipath scheme, no promotion, nor any higher rank and what to talk of honouring one who spends six months in training and then works on contract for three and a half years.
Gohil said whenever the government takes a major decision, it comes after a long-drawn process instead of an instant decision. There are experiments on the trial basis and opinions are sought before any such decision.
He said had it been a decision of the Army, the youths who had filled up the nomination forms three years ago to join the armed forces, they would have been told that there will be no more exams. He said it is clearly not the Army’s decision. He wondered about the modus operandi adopted by the Prime Minister to announced such a major decision through a tweet on Agnipath.
Had it been a decision of the three Armed Forces, they would have come forward to declare the scheme, but they stepped in only when the youth across the country went on rampage, Gohil underlined.
He recalled the words of late Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat that the average life span of people have gone up and so he wants the soldier to retire at the age of 58 years and not after 15 or 17 years of service as it will provide an experienced soldier and the load of pension because of an early retirement will also be reduced.
Gohil said the two key factors in the recruitment in the Armed Forces are the physical and medical tests. Thousands of youths filled up the forms in response to the advertisements in 2020. They were tested for physical fitness in the first and second week of February 2021. Thousands of youths passe for physical fitness and medical tests and they were even issued the admit cards. But the procedure was suddenly cancelled and what came in was the Agnipath.
Gohil said he has thoroughly gone through a note circulated by the government on the Abnipath scheme at the Consultative Committee meeting of MPs and so he is of the firm view that better would be to roll back the scheme because it ensures “neither security, nor rank, nor pension but gives only tension.”
