Agnipath scheme: Govt changes upper age limit for Agniveers amid protest

Amid widescale protests and violence, the Narendra Modi government has increased the upper age limit for the recruitment of armed forces under the newly launched Agnipath scheme.

In a stament, the defence ministry noted that it has taken cognizance of the fact that it has not been possible to undertake the recruitment during the last two years.

The statment said that the government has decided that a one-time waiver shall be granted for the proposed recruitment cycle for 2022 and the upper age limit will now be set at 23 years. While the lower age limit remains unchanged at 17 and a half years, the govt had set the upper age limit at 21 years when it announced what it called a transformative scheme on Tuesday.

Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.

Apart from issuing a 'Myth vs Facts' document to address the concerns raised about the scheme, the government's information dissemination arm had issued a series of social media posts in its support but to no avail.

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