CDS announces 2-year service extension for Agniveer posts

Chief of defence staff General NS Raja Subramani will shortly announce a two-year service extension for Agniveers, senior government officials said, signaling that the military values their contribution and requires their continued services.

The decision to continue in service will rest entirely with the individual, the officials said.

The move comes weeks before the three services were to start releasing 75% of Agniveers from their first batch in phases starting mid-November.

Over 18,300 Agniveers were to exit the armed forces by December 31 after completing their four-year term.

The Agnipath recruitment model—long a political flashpoint because it cuts the tenure of personnel below officer rank and offers them fewer service benefits—was introduced in 2022 to keep the armed forces young and combat-ready.

Under Agnipath, soldiers are recruited for a four-year term, with a provision to retain only 25% of them in regular service for another 15 years.

The 18,300 soldiers, who were to be released this year, account for three-fourths of the 24,400 recruits inducted into the army, air force and navy in the first round of recruitment. The first batch comprised around 19,000 Agniveers in the army, 2,850 in the IAF and 2,550 in the navy, according to official data.

The three services have expressed satisfaction with the performance of Agniveers across roles.

Officials earlier said the scheme could be tweaked in the future to retain more Agniveers with specialised skills. The army currently has around 270,000 Agniveers, the IAF around 27,000 and the navy roughly 21,000, the officials said.

The Agnipath model marked a major departure from the military’s decades-old recruitment system, which the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government replaced when it announced the new scheme in June 2022.