Few vacancies, delayed appointments: Why ex-servicemen fail to find jobs

In the wake of protests against the Agnipath scheme by aspiri­ng soldiers, industrialists took to Twitter to announce that they were willing to hire ex-servi­cemen in their organisations.

The government is also a big employer of ex-servicemen. However, veterans complain that jobs reserved for them are too few.

Data shows that despite the scarcity, most of the jobs that are reserved for ex-servicemen are not given to them. According to the rules of reservation, there should be 413,688 positions available for ex-servicemen in Groups A, B, C and D jobs.

However, less than a quarter (80,135 of 413,688) of these jobs in banks, Central PSUs and Central Armed Police Forces are taken by ex-servicemen, according to the data from the Directorate of Resettlement. 

The Central Armed Police Forces, which announced a 10 per cent reservation for retiring Agniveers, has given only 0.47 of the 10 per cent in Group C to ex-servicemen as of June 2021. Central PSUs have staffed 1.15 per cent of the Group C vacancies and 0.3 per cent of the Group D vacan­cies with ex-servicemen, based on the data from 98 of 170 PSUs.

The data shows that absorbing the first batch of 34,500 retired Agniveers in 2026 will require additional vacancies. While Home Minister Amit Shah announced that they will be given preference in recruitment for the Assam Rifles and the Central Armed Police Forces, it is not clear if they will be eligible for the same quota as the ex-servicemen.

 

Source: IndiaSpend