Is the Agnipath scheme being relaunched? – No, the viral document is fake

The viral document is fake and that the government has not officially released any such document regarding the relaunch of the Agnipath scheme.

Agnipath Scheme is a tour of duty style scheme approved by the Government of India in June 2022 and implemented in the country a few months later in September 2022, for recruitment of soldiers below the rank of commissioned officers into the three services of the armed forces. All recruits will be hired only for a four-year period. Personnel recruited under this system are to be called Agniveers.

Recently, Armed Forces are discussing possible tweaks to the Agnipath scheme for military recruitment including changes in the retention percentage of Agniveers from the current 25 per cent and increase in their training period. These changes, however, are not yet formal recommendations to the government. These are proposals that are still being discussed by the Armed Forces. 

Against this backdrop, an image is going viral on social media to claim that the Agnipath scheme is being relaunched as ‘Sainik Saman Scheme’, which would also carry certain changes.

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Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by checking the official notifications released by the central government and the Defence Ministry and could not find any document posted by them on relaunching the Agnipath scheme.

On carefully analysing the viral document, we found the text in the document had multiple grammatical and spelling errors. The name of the scheme “Agnipath” itself is misspelt as “Aganipath”. Furthermore, the document was not printed on official letterhead and was not signed by any authorized official.

Moving forward, we have come across a clarification issued by the fact-checking wing of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on Twitter on 16 June, 2024, they refuted the viral claims and called the document fake. The tweet states, “A #fake WhatsApp message claims that the Agnipath Scheme has been re-launched as ‘Sainik Saman Scheme’ after review with several changes including duty period being extended to 7 years, 60% permanent staff & increased income. GOI has taken no such decision.”

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Moreover, we found no credible news reports or publicly available information to back up the claim of such changes in the Agnipath scheme.

Conclusion-

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral image to be False. The viral document is fake and that the government has not officially released any such document regarding the relaunch of the Agnipath scheme.