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New Delhi [India], June 17 (ANI): Hailing the centre's decision of increasing the age of recruitment for Agniveers, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar tweeted on Friday "the scheme is an opportunity for India's youth to join the defence forces and serve the nation."

He further said that the decision shows the sensitivity of the Centre towards those whose dreams were impacted due to the COVID pandemic.

Indian Army Chief General Manoj Pande on Friday said that the training of first Agniveers will begin in December 2022 and the active service will commence in the middle of 2023.

Agnipath Scheme was recently launched by the government in an effort to bring a change in the recruitment process of the Armed Forces.

Notably, COVID-19 halted the Army's recruitment for over two years. In 2019-2020, the Army recruited jawans and there has been no entry since then. On the other hand, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force had both recruited in the last two years respectively.

With the new military recruitment scheme facing a backlash by Opposition, the Centre has decided to bring a change in the upper age limit for recruiting Agniveers. Granting a one-time waiver, the Centre on June 16, 2022, announced that the Agniveer upper age limit for recruitments via Agnipath Scheme has been extended to 23 years from 21 years.

Consequent to the commencement of the Agnipath scheme, the entry age for all new recruits in the Armed Forces has been fixed as 17 1/2 - 21 years of age, said the Ministry of Defence on Friday.

The Ministry of Defence, in its statement on Tuesday, 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.

The nation stands to immensely benefit from the infusion of highly inspired youth with a deeper understanding of self-discipline, diligence and focus who would be adequately skilled and will be able to contribute in other sectors.

However, violent protests against the 'Agnipath' scheme sparked in Bihar, Muzaffarpur, Begusarai and Buxar wherein aspirants disrupted rail and road traffic while police fired tear gas shells to disperse them. "The government should give 'Agniveers' 20-30 per cent reservation in other jobs once they are out of service after four years under the 'Agnipath' scheme", said a protester

Agnipath 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. The policy, which comes into immediate effect, will hereafter govern the enrolment for the three services. (ANI)