The latest draft of a proposed scheme to recruit soldiers into the Indian Armed Forces on short-term contracts requires every soldier and the government to contribute an equal amount every month towards their final severance amount of around Rs 10 lakh — which the soldiers would receive upon their retirement after four years of service, News18 has learnt.
As per highly placed sources in the government, the scheme includes a ‘Seva Nidhi package’, which entails that every month, a soldier will contribute 30% of his emoluments and the government will also contribute an equal amount. At their retirement after four years, the soldiers will receive around Rs 10 lakh along with interest.
The Seva Nidhi package draws similarities to the National Pension Scheme — a contributory pension scheme applicable for government servants since 2004. It will help the government save on the defence budget by generating the severance package from the pool created by way of individual contributions, sources said.
Options to Claim Seva Nidhi
A source in the government said the soldiers would be provided with two options to claim the Seva Nidhi package.
“One option is to credit Rs 1 lakh into a soldier’s account when he is released after four years and converting the remaining amount into bank guarantees for raising loans. The second is to credit the entire amount to the soldier’s account in one go,” the source told News18.
Tentatively named Agnipath, the scheme could be announced within a week, restarting recruitments into the Armed Forces which has been on hold for over two years now.
Top sources told News18 that over 45,000 recruits would be taken into the three services in the first go. Soldiers recruited under the scheme will get a monthly salary ranging between Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000.
“They will be granted risk and hardship allowance separately at par with regular soldiers based on where they are posted,” a second source said.
The recruits would also be provided with death and disability benefits under the scheme.
In Case of Death and Disability
“If a soldier dies in the line of duty, the options could be to provide a non-contributory insurance cover of Rs 48 lakh with a one-time ex-gratia amount of Rs 44 lakh and provide the pay for the number of years for which he couldn’t serve which would include the Seva Nidhi component,” the second source said.
“In case of a disability, the disability percentage will be assessed as per existing medical criteria and a one-time ex-gratia amount of Rs 44 lakh, Rs 25 lakh or Rs 15 lakh would be provided depending on the percentage of disability,” the source said.
Soldiers between ages 17.5 years and 21 years would be recruited under the scheme. They will be released after four years of service which would include six months of training. A diploma and degree is also being planned for the recruits when they are released.
After the soldiers are released, a certain percentage of them would be rehired to serve the full term in the Army for another 15 years, based on certain parameters which are yet to be formulated. Their past four years of service would not be included when their pensions are calculated at their retirement, sources said.
The draft of the scheme — first proposed in 2020 for both officers and soldiers — had undergone several revisions in the last two years. Initially, the plan was to release a certain percentage of soldiers after three and five years each and retain the rest to serve for the full term.
However, the government and the services could not come on the same page on the final percentages to be retained.
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