Agnipath recruitment scheme: Increasing age limit to 23, retention rate of Agniveers to 50%, Army chief on plans ahead

General Upendra Dwivedi, the Chief of the Indian Army Staff, who recently attended the India Today Conclave 2025, opened up on ‘Agnipath’ recruitment and called it a great success. He also opened up on the changes being considered to further enhance the effectiveness of ‘Agnipath’ and about the possibility of increasing the age limit to 23, retention rates of Agniveers to 50%, and other plans ahead.

“I am getting the first-hand feedback… Agnipath is proving to be a very great success and crème de la crème which is coming to us, and their urge to learn is somehow comparatively very high. As far as their capability to deliver whatever we wanted them to deliver in three to four years, they’re able to deliver,” the Chief said.

Improvement of Agnipath:

The Army Chief also opened up on the key areas being reviewed to improve the scheme. These include aligning leave policies of Agniveers with regular soldiers, harmonizing casualty benefits for Agniveers with serving personnel, and increasing technical recruitment by raising the maximum age limit from 21 to 23.

“We are already working on various issues. We are looking at the fact that their leave should be synergized with the normal soldiers’ leave. When he becomes a casualty, is it required to be harmonized with the serving soldier? Similarly, we want more technically qualified people – should we increase the age from 21 to 23? So, these are some issues which we are looking at, and it’s working well,” he explained. 

Increasing Retention Rate:

Speaking about the possibility of increasing the retention rate of Agniveers from 25% to 50%, General Dwivedi said that it was too early to decide.

“So this is an evolutionary process, and it is too premature for us to take the decision. I think this decision we should leave it somewhere up till December 2026 to look into what is required and what is not,” he added.