Why Agnipath's age relaxation may not solve the problem of recruitment

No increase in recruitment targets means more candidates between 17-23 will vie for the job - increasing competition

Facing nationwide protests and attacks from the Opposition against the newly-introduced Agnipath recruitment scheme for the armed forces, the Centre announced a relaxation in age limit from 21 to 23 for the first set of recruits.

The Centre also announced a 10 per cent reservation for 'Agniveers' in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Assam Rifles, aside from states making their own concessions in recruitments for various departments.

However, the relaxation in age limit has done little to assauge protesters, and could cause other issues as well.

According to data shared by the Ministry of Defence in March, the number of Army soldiers was 80,000 in 2019-20, but recruitment was stopped after the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic. During the same time, however, the Navy and Air Force recruited just 6,000 and 7,200 candidates.

At the time, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt informed the Rajya Sabha that the recruitment in the defence forces has not been stopped but restricted owing to the pandemic, while Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that every year, the Indian Army conducts 90-to 100 recruitment drives or rallies to recruit men for the Army and on an average, youth of six to seven districts join in one rally for the recruitment drive.

However, the Indian Army's recruitment had been falling in the years prior to 2019. In 2018, the Army recruited just 53,000 people, and just 50,000 in 2017.

A report in The Indian Express said that total induction in the three services over the first four years of the Agnipath scheme will be a little over 2 lakh, putting it at a target of 50,000 Agniveers per year for all 3 services - which amounts to just over 16,000 recruits for each of the services, far less than 2017's recruitment numbers in the Army alone.

Going by the target recruitment numbers of the government, the problem of recruiting youths under the Agnipath scheme are not solved by increasing the age limit alone, as the Centre did not announce any increase in recruitment numbers. Going by that, the scene is likely to see even more competition than it would had the age limit been kept at 21, as candidates will have lesser chance of making it through the process.