6,277 Agniveers of first batch stuck sans police verification

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, August 11

A whopping one-third of the first batch of recruits under the new Agnipath scheme have not yet formally joined the Army. The reason is bureaucratic — the police verification to be done for each of these recruits is pending in their home districts across the country.

1/3rd induction hit

• 18,849 Agniveers completed training in June this year
• Of them, only 12,572 have been verified and inducted so far
• Police attuned to pre-Agnipath training that lasted 9-18 months
• Now, training just 6-8 months

The first batch of recruits under the Agnipath scheme completed their training in mid-June this year from the Army’s multiple training establishments. The recruits whose verification is pending have not been asked to leave, but technically the Army cannot “attest” them. The “attestation ceremony” which includes the oath-taking is held to mark the completion of the training of troops before they formally join the Army. For officers, the term used is “passing out parade”.

Top sources in the military establishment confirmed to The Tribune that the first batch of 18,849 Agniveers – name for recruits under the Agnipath scheme — completed their training in June. Of them, only 12,572 have been “attested” so far while the remaining 6,277 have “not been attested”. Several regimental training centres have written to the Army Headquarters about the pending verification. The police verification, a practice which dates back to colonial times, is a rather stringent process that requires authentication at various levels. It includes a detailed report of the local police official on the recruit, his family, associations and connections.

With the Army having stopping recruitment of troops during Covid in 2020, the number of pending verifications is big. As on December 2022, there were 1.18 lakh vacancies of troops. The first intake post Covid was after the Agnipath scheme was announced in June 2022. The first batch that passed out in this year underwent the mandated six months of training.

The Department of Military Affairs headed by the Chief of Defence Staff has written a letter to the Union Home Secretary with a detailed state-wise list of unverified Agniveers, asking for help from states to speed up the process, the sources said.

The Adjutant General of the Army has also met the Union Home Secretary in this regard. The Army training centres and recruiting offices are, at their level, working for faster verification by tracking down the pending verifications.

The sources explained that the verification backlog occurred because the police were attuned to carrying out verification at a pace to match the pre-Agnipath training period which lasted between 9 months and 18 months depending on the arm that had been selected.

For the Agnipath scheme, the training duration varies between 24 weeks and 31 weeks depending on the branch. The police on the ground could not complete the process within this reduced training period.