Consultative Committee of Defence Ministry to meet on Agnipath on July 8

The Consultative Committee of Defence Ministry will meet to discuss the new recruitment scheme Agnipath on July 8 (Friday).

Ahead of the commencement of monsoon session of Parliament, this meeting is supposed to discuss the new recruitment scheme in detail and the members of parliament will be given information about it in the meeting on behalf of the ministry.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will preside over the meeting. The committee consists of 20 members of parliament -- 13 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha.

The monsoon session is scheduled to start from July 18 and is expected to witness heated debate on the recruitment scheme.

The Centre's Agniath Army recruitment scheme for Indian youth, which was termed historic and transformative, has however met with unprecedented spate of agitation and protest in several states across India.

The Agnipath Army Recruitment Scheme was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security last month. Under the scheme, around 46,000 soldiers will be recruited between the ages of 17-and-a-half years and 21 years into the three services on a contract basis for four years.

However, the upper-age limit for the scheme was raised to 23 years from 21 years for recruitment under the Agnipath scheme for the year 2022 after the protest. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also announced 10 per cent reservation in the Defence Ministry for Agniveers later.