Flaws in new policy of inducting Agniveers

Lt Gen Tejinder Sahrawat (Retd)

Former Deputy Chief, Integrated Defence Staff

The pension expenditure on six lakh defence widows and 20 lakh veterans is being seen as a burden, even as the Central Government is paying pension to 52 lakh Central civilian pensioners. In the financial year 2022-23, the defence budget stands at Rs 5.25 lakh crore, of which Rs 1.19 lakh crore or 22 per cent is earmarked for pensions. The defence pension budget includes the expenditure on six lakh current defence civilian pensioners, who retire at the age of 60 years vis-à-vis the much shorter retirement ages of the uniformed personnel, and draw much higher pensions than the latter.

By excluding the defence pension expenditure on civilian employees, the pension budget of the uniformed personnel works out to approximately Rs 92,000 crore (18 per cent of the current defence budget, with the defence budget being at a low of 2 per cent of the GDP as against 3 per cent recommended consistently by various committees of Parliament). With the current defence budget vis-a-vis the Chinese defence budget of $330 billion, India can’t become the regional power that it aspires to be.

It is strange that the paramilitary and police forces, numbering three million, are conveniently paid pensions, while the armed forces, numbering 1.4 million, which in addition to their primary task of maintaining territorial integrity, are regularly called out to assist these forces, should be considered elephantine. With unsettled borders with our neighbours and China alone maintaining an armed force of 2.5 million, including reserves, the Indian armed forces are numerically much inferior, rather than being elephantine. The numerically inferior Indian armed forces operating in the treacherous terrain in high mountains require high quality and highly trained and motivated soldiers to meet the collusive threat from China and Pakistan to our security. Will the fancily termed Agniveers be able to meet this challenge?

The Agniveers will be recruited for a term of four years, including six months of training. They will be paid a salary of Rs 30,000-40,000 a month from which 30 per cent will be retained and matched by an equal contribution from the government. An Agniveer will be discharged with a cheque for Rs 11 lakh, out of which 50 per cent will be the Agniveer’s own contribution. After deductions, the monthly salary paid to an Agniveer will be less than that of a peon in the government. Only 25 per cent of the Agniveers will be absorbed as regular soldiers. With these terms of service conditions, with no assurance of continuation of service in the forces or an assured availability of a job in civil, any eligible person will first compete for a job in the civil government, police and paramilitary forces where he gets an assured service till the age of 60 years and thereafter look at the forces. The first casualty will be the quality of human resource coming to the armed forces.

At present, after basic training of a year-plus where a soldier learns basic skills in the training centres, he learns the application of these skills in tactical groupings and tactical situations in exercises at the unit and formation levels in the next two to three years before he can be called a fully trained soldier, i.e. the time by which an Agniveer will be released from the armed forces. With a curtailed training, an Agniveer will neither be able to gain any worthwhile expertise in handling modern expensive military equipment nor understand the nuances of a modern battlefield of artificial intelligence, cyber warfare etc.

The battle-winning factor in the Indian Army is its regimental system, where a soldier with his association with his regiment over a period of time starts taking pride in the history and battle achievements of his regiment and develops esprit de corps and camaraderie, which motivate him to remain steadfast in life-threatening situations in the brutal battlefield environment, with guns blazing, limbs flying and men dying around him.

This regimental system which is at the core of the battle-winning factor will totally break down with the transitory Agniveers, leading to a failure of the military missions. If the policy of Agniveer enrolment is continued, in the next 15 years, all regiments will have 75 per cent inadequately trained Agniveers, with regimental service ranging from one day to three and a half years, making the Army no better than a conscript army. A poor quality human resource, an inadequately trained and poorly paid Agniveer, lacking any motivation with a broken regimental system, will be a sure recipe for disaster for national security while fighting the battle-hardened soldiers of our western neighbour.

A war lost brings shame and ignominy to the citizens of a country and reduces the prestige and the country’s influence in the world. With successful military operations against the Chinese in eastern Ladakh in 2020 made possible by professional sol diers, India has just come out of a psychological fear of the Chinese, 58 years after the 1962 Indo-China war. Let the adoption of a flawed system in the military organisation of the armed forces not repeat the disastrous experience.

An effective way to save the pension expenditure will be to give a term of service of 10 years to the soldiers and, thereafter, give them assured employment in the government and industry. The armed forces have all kinds of technically trained and general duty disciplined manpower and can be given short orientation trainings for new assignments. A ministry with a ‘whole government approach’ needs to be created to facilitate the absorption of military personnel, after 10 years of service, in alternative employment. A necessary parliamentary legislation should be passed to break the resistance of organisations opposing it. It will keep the armed forces young, with fully trained and experienced soldiers. It will save the overall pension expenditure.

One must remember that there are no runners-up in war, there are only winners or losers. The armed forces are to be maintained to win the war and not to just display numbers on their rolls.

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