With the announcement for introducing the Agnipath scheme in the Armed forces witnessing widespread reactions across the country, the army and navy are all set to start recruitment of candidates from today, July 1, 2022.

According to a report, the army and navy will begin registration of candidates under the new Agnipath scheme for short-term induction of soldiers on Friday, with lakhs of young men expected to apply for 43,000 jobs the two services are offering this year, people familiar with the development said on Thursday.

The Agnipath scheme will allow youths between the ages of 17-and-a-half and 21 years to be inducted for a four-year-tenure and 25% of them will be inducted for regular service subsequently. On June 16 the government had increased the upper age limit for recruitment under the scheme to 23 years from 21 for the year 2022, and announced steps including preference for Agniveers in central paramilitary forces and defence public sector undertakings upon their retirement.

Meanwhile, the fourth Synergy Conference between the Indian Army and Defence Accounts Department (DAD) was held in New Delhi on Tuesday. As per the Ministry of Defence, the primary agenda of the conference included deliberations on the Agnipath scheme and the schedule for timely implementation of a system for pay and allowances for Agniveers. Additionally, the other agenda items included improvement of the functioning of Pay and Accounts Offices (PAOs) for better service delivery to junior commissioned officers, other ranks of the Indian Army. Concrete action plans for the future were devised in consultation with senior officers of both sides.

The CGDA shared the vision of the department to leverage the power of technology to improve service delivery for the Armed Forces and deploy innovative business process re-engineering to fundamentally change the system of bill-processing and payments. CGDA Kumar outlined the various initiatives of DAD such as DARPAN (Defence Accounts Receipt, Payment and Analysis) and the upcoming Centralised Pay System. He also highlighted the support needed from the Army side for successful achievement of the objectives.

The VCOAS Lt Gen Raju appreciated the various initiatives being implemented by DAD. He urged the senior officers of the Indian Army and DAD to work in close coordination to solve various issues of internal audit and payment. He spoke of the need to identify the costing and expenditure profile for the units and formations to help aid decision-making and better management of defence budget.