Parliamentary Consultative Committee to discuss 'Agnipath' on July 11

Youth Congress workers stage a protest against the Centre's Agnipath scheme, in Jammu, Saturday, July 2, 2022. Credit: PTI Photo

The government will face tough questions from the Opposition MPs on the controversial Agnipath military recruitment scheme during a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Defence next Monday.

At the meeting, earlier scheduled for July 8, now postponed to July 11, members will discuss “Agnipath Recruitment Scheme”. The meeting is seen as an attempt to soften the Opposition attack during the Parliament’s Monsoon Session starting July 18. Sources in the Opposition said they would raise their concerns about the scheme. The country had witnessed violent protests following the announcement of the scheme last month.

The Opposition is up in arms against the contractual scheme through which youth aged between 17.5 years and 21 years are recruited for a four-year period after which only 25 per cent will be absorbed for longer service. They allege that this would have an impact on the quality of the military.

Also read: Under Agnipath, majority applicants want to get into IAF

The Defence Minister will brief the panel about the "various aspects of the recently-launched Agnipath scheme, through which recruitment of soldiers in all the three Services will henceforth take place", an official statement said.

Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar, Army chief Gen Manoj Pande, Navy chief Admiral Hari Kumar and Air Force chief Vivek Ram Chaudhari will also be present at the meeting.

Twenty MPs – 13 from Lok Sabha and seven from Rajya Sabha – are members of the panel headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt is also part of the panel.

Of the 20 MPs, 11 are from the Opposition, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, Manish Tewari, Farooq Abdullah, A Raja, Supriya Sule, Sougata Roy and Sudip Bandyopadhyay.

Parliamentary Consultative Committees, set up in 1954, are meant to promote informal consultation between the government and MPs on policies and programmes of the government and the manner of their implementation. The membership of Consultative Committees - which should have at least 10 MPs and a maximum of 30 - is voluntary and an MP can be part of only one such panel.