Consultative Committee for Defence Ministry to meet over Agnipath Scheme on July 8

New Delhi [India], July 6 (ANI): Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh will preside over a meeting of the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Defense, over the Agnipath Scheme, on July 8.
"The agenda of this meeting has been kept on Agneepath scheme. It is believed that in the meeting, the MPs will be given detailed information about the Agneepath scheme on behalf of the Defense Ministry," Committee sources told ANI.
At present, 13 members of the Lok Sabha and 7 MPs of the Rajya Sabha are included in this committee. Also, many senior leaders of the Opposition are included as members including Mallikarjun Kharge, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Manish Tewari, Farooq Abdullah and Rakesh Singh.
The upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament, to be held from July 18, may see a heated debate on this issue.
The Union Cabinet approved the Agnipath scheme on June 14 and the youth selected under this scheme will be known as Agniveers.
The government had announced that 46,000 Agniveers to be recruited this year. It had said that the armed forces will have "a younger, fitter, diverse profile" to face future challenges.
The Ministry of Defence, in its statement, had said that the Agnipath scheme has been designed to enable a youthful profile of the Armed Forces. It will provide an opportunity to the youth who may be keen to don the uniform by attracting young talent from the society who are more in tune with contemporary technological trends and plough back skilled, disciplined and motivated manpower into the society.
It is envisaged that the average age profile of the Indian Armed forces would come down by about 4-5 years by the implementation of this scheme.
This is a major defence policy reform introduced by the Government to usher in a new era in the Human Resource policy of the three Services.
There have been protests against the Agnipath scheme in some states and the government has announced support measures to allay apprehensions. (ANI)