The Armed Forces are close to finalising the broad criteria for assessing the 25 per cent of Agniveers who would be retained in the services at the end of their four-year tenure—which is likely to include a 1,000-mark system, special weightage for “soldierly qualities”, and sports skills—News18 has learnt.
Under the newly launched Agnipath scheme, 46,000 Agniveers will be recruited into the Armed Forces —40,000 for the Army, and 3,000 each for the Navy and IAF. The numbers will go up every year after that.
Sources in the government told News18 that the soldiers would be constantly assessed through their tenure on parameters under Operations, such as their performances in Battle Preparedness Efficiency Test (BPET), Physical Proficiency Test (PPT), firing and drill.
Similarly, recruits engaged in various trades—such as drivers, and gunners among other trades across the services—will be continuously evaluated on their technical proficiency.
A government source said the Agniveers will also be assessed on various “soldierly qualities” such as loyalty, integrity, camaraderie, responsiveness, and responsibility.
“There would be additional weightage for those who are outstanding sportsmen, gallantry awardees or in instances of them suffering injuries in operations, while there could be negative marks for poor discipline or punishments under the service acts,” the source said.
The plans, so far, are to make the evaluation on a total of 1,000 marks. The Agniveers would be assessed by a three-tier system including the commanding officer under whom they are serving.
While these are the broad criteria being finalised, sources said the professional and technical standards or qualifications would vary between the three services.
The assessment would continue through four years of their service, including in the training period of six months.
In June, the Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen BS Raju told News18 that the Agniveers would be assessed through four years on multiple objective and subjective parameters before a final merit list is drawn for their selection as permanent soldiers.
Emphasising that the selection process will be transparent, he had said that all the performance-related data will be collated and uploaded into the system, without any human intervention, and that Agniveers will be counselled and will be given performance appraisals through this training period.
As reported by News18 this week, the Centre last month amended the Defence Services Regulations to include the rank of Agniveer amid preparations to induct men and women into the Army, Navy, and the Indian Air Force, as per which, the rank of Agniveer will be the last in the order of precedence — after JCOs, WOs, NCOs, Sepoys, Riflemen and their equivalents in the other two defence services.
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