Scheme to hire Agniveers will ensure youthful profile of Armed forces: Army Chief Pande

PUNE/NEW DELHI: Indian Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande on Thursday called the Agnipath’ scheme a “path-breaking” manpower intake methodology and asserted that it will ensure the youthful profile of the Armed forces.

Under the Agnipath scheme, which was introduced in 2022, soldiers are enrolled as Agniveers by the Armed forces for four years. They can then go back to society and take up jobs in other sectors to pursue a career of their choice.

Gen Pande was speaking at the convocation and scroll presentation ceremony at the College of Military Engineering in Pune.

Gen Pande said that the integration of Agniveers into the units and subunits is the key as their assessment and retention in service is based entirely on merit.

The top defence official said that the Indian Army has embarked upon the path of transformation since last one year.

The need for the transformation has accrued four key drivers such as unprecedented trends in the geo-strategic landscape, the limitless potential of destructive technology, changing character of war and profound changes in the socio-economic situation, he said.

Teaming up of manned and unmanned military assets will be a major aspect in new-generation avionics to prepare for future warfare and India is making concerted efforts in this direction, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said on Thursday.

In an address at an aviation expo, the top military official also underlined the need for developing futuristic technologies to deal with any possible security challenges.

The Chief of the Defence Staff was addressing ‘Avionics Expo 2023’ organised by the HAL in the national capital.