New Delhi: The Union Home Ministry has decided today to give priority to Agniveers who have completed four years under this scheme for recruitment into CAPFs and Assam Rifles. The Union Cabinet on 14th June 2022 approved a recruitment scheme for Indian youth to serve in the Armed Forces called AGNIPATH and the youth selected under this scheme will be known as Agniveers.

Moreover, to enhance the future career prospects of our Agniveers, and to prepare them for various types of jobs in the civilian sector, the Ministry of Education is planning to launch a special, three-year, skill-based bachelor’s degree programme for serving defence personnel, which will recognize the skills they acquired in their time at the defence establishments.

Under this programme that has been designed by IGNOU and will also be executed by them, 50 % of the credits required for a graduate degree will come from the skill training – both technical and non-technical – received by the Agniveer, and the remaining 50 % will come from a basket of courses that cover a wide variety of subjects like languages, Economics, History, Political Science, Public Administration, Sociology, Mathematics, Education, Commerce, Tourism, Vocational Studies, Agriculture and Jyotish, as also Ability Enhancement Courses on Environmental Studies and Communication Skills in English.

Further in this context, the Department of Telecom (DoT) held a meeting with all the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) today. Ways and means of how the telecom sector in general and TSPs, in particular, can make use of the talent, discipline and acquired skills of the trained ‘Agniveers’ who will be coming out after 4 years of service with the Armed Forces were discussed at the meeting. Representatives of all the 4 TSPs (Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Jio and Vodafone-Idea) attended the meeting along with Senior Officers of DoT. The meeting was chaired by Member(Technology) at Sanchar Bhawan.

During discussions, some areas were identified in which engagement/ employment of ‘Agniveers’ could be done. These include Optical Fibre Maintenance, Air Conditioning equipment, Provision of infrastructure especially last-mile connectivity, Fibre to Home (FTTH), and Customer Interface areas. TSPs agreed that the talent pool of trained/skilled and disciplined youth that would become available as a result of this Scheme could be an asset for the country including the telecom sector. It was decided that TSPs would shortly revert with inputs on specific trades/skill sets they were looking for. It could then be explored if training in these specific aspects/areas could be provided to these ‘Agniveers’ during their stint in the Armed Forces so that they are industry-ready when they complete their Agnipath service. DeshGujarat.