The latest draft of the proposed scheme for recruiting soldiers in the Indian armed forces on short-term contracts requires each soldier and the government to contribute an equal amount every month for a final severance amount of around Rs 10 lakh – which the soldiers will receive . His retirement after serving four years, News18 has learned.
According to highly placed sources in the government, the scheme includes a ‘Service Fund Package’, which includes that every month, a soldier will contribute 30% of his emoluments and the government will also contribute the same amount. On retiring after four years, the soldiers will get around Rs 10 lakh along with interest.
service fund The package is similar to the National Pension Scheme – a contributory pension scheme implemented for government employees since 2004. This will help the government save on the defense budget by generating severance packages from the pool created through individual contributions, sources said.
Options to claim service fund
A government source said soldiers would be provided with two options for claiming the service fund package.
“An alternative is to deposit Rs 1 lakh in a soldier’s account when he is released after four years and convert the remaining amount into a bank guarantee to raise the loan. The second is to deposit the entire amount in the soldier’s account in one go,” the source told News18.
Temporarily named Agneepath, the scheme may be announced within a week, resuming recruitments in the armed forces that have been stalled for more than two years now.
Top sources told News18 that over 45,000 recruits will be taken in the three services in the first instance. Soldiers recruited under the scheme will get a monthly salary between Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000.
A second source said, “They will be given a separate risk and hardship allowance at par with the regular soldiers where they are posted.”
Death and disability benefits will also be provided to the recruits under the scheme.
In case of death and disability
“If a soldier dies in the line of duty, the alternative may be to provide a non-contributory insurance cover of Rs 48 lakh along with a one-time ex-gratia of Rs 44 lakh plus salary for the number of years. Which he could not serve which would include the service fund component,” said another source.
“In case of disability, the disability percentage will be assessed as per the extant medical norms and a lump sum ex-gratia of Rs 44 lakh, Rs 25 lakh or Rs 15 lakh will be provided depending on the percentage of disability.” The source said.
Soldiers in the age group of 17.5 years to 21 years will be recruited under this scheme. They will be released after serving four years which will include six months of training. Diplomas and degrees are also being planned for the recruits upon their release.
After the release of soldiers, a certain percentage of them will be re-employed for full tenure in the Army for the next 15 years based on certain parameters, which have not yet been drawn up. Sources said that his last four years of service will not be counted in the calculation of pension at the time of his retirement.
The draft plan – first proposed in 2020 for both officers and soldiers – had undergone several revisions over the past two years. Initially, the plan was to issue a certain percentage of soldiers after every three and five years and retain the rest for the entire term.
However, the government and services could not be on the same page on the final percentage to retain.
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