What the Agnipath scheme is
Agnipath is the scheme under which the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force enrol young Indians into the ranks for a fixed engagement of four years. A person enrolled under it is called an Agniveer. In the Air Force the entry carries its own name, Agniveervayu.
VSVSV is a private learning platform. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by the Ministry of Defence, the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force, or any recruiting body. We do not conduct, influence, or take part in recruitment or selection. This article is study material. It is not a recruitment notification. It confers no entitlement of any kind.
Understand the scheme as a whole before you look at any one paper. Almost every question a candidate asks is answered by the scheme's own terms: what the exam is, what the pay is, what happens at the end of the four years. A coaching class is not the authority on any of them.
The four-year engagement
Enrolment is for four years, and the enrolment happens under the service's own governing Act. The Indian Navy's advertisements for the 01/2027 and 02/2027 batches state that an Agniveer is enrolled "in the Indian Navy under the Navy Act 1957, for a period of four years". The Indian Army enrols under the Army Act 1950 for the same duration.
This matters more than it first looks. An Agniveer is a serving member of the armed forces for those four years, under military law and military discipline, and not a trainee or an apprentice. The four-year figure is a term of engagement, not a training period.
The three services, and what each calls its entry
All three services recruit under Agnipath, and each runs its own examination, its own physical tests and its own categories.
- Indian Army — recruits Agniveers through a Common Entrance Examination (CEE) followed by a recruitment rally. It recruits into several distinct categories, including General Duty, Technical, Clerk / Store Keeper Technical, Tradesmen and Women Military Police.
- Indian Air Force — recruits Agniveervayu through an online test run in streams, depending on whether the candidate applies on the science side, the other-than-science side, or both.
- Indian Navy — recruits Agniveers into entries including SSR, MR, SSR (Medical Assistant) and MR (Musician), through the INET at Stage I and a second written exam at Stage II, with the Physical Fitness Test between them.
They are three separate recruitments with three separate notifications, three separate portals and three separate marking schemes. A candidate who prepares for one has not thereby prepared for another. We have separate articles on what each service recruits for.
Pay during the engagement
These provisions are quoted from the notifications for the current cycle, the Navy's 01/2027 and 02/2027 advertisements. Under them an Agniveer draws a monthly package of thirty thousand rupees in the first year, rising with a fixed yearly increment across the engagement. On top of the package the notification provides for risk and hardship allowance, a dress allowance and a travel allowance.
Two cautions on that figure, both of which matter.
First, the monthly package is not take-home pay. A part of it is the Agniveer's own contribution to the Seva Nidhi, described below, and is deducted before payment.
Second, pay figures are among the provisions most often revised between cycles. The number above is pinned to the cycle named. Read the pay clause of the notification you are actually applying under, rather than a figure repeated from an earlier year.
Seva Nidhi
The Seva Nidhi is a one-time package paid on completion of the engagement period. Under the same notifications, it is made up of the Agniveer's own monthly contribution across the four years, plus a matching contribution from the Government.
It is worth being precise about what this is and is not. It is a lump sum built from money that was withheld from the monthly package and matched. It is paid at the end of the engagement. It is a defined entitlement under the scheme's terms, and it is the principal financial provision an Agniveer leaves with.
Insurance and disability cover
The scheme carries cover that applies during service. Under the notifications for the current cycle:
- Life cover of forty-eight lakh rupees, non-contributory, for the duration of the engagement.
- A one-time ex-gratia of forty-four lakh rupees where death is attributable to service.
- Forty-four, twenty-five or fifteen lakh rupees for disability assessed at one hundred, seventy-five or fifty per cent respectively.
These are the published provisions. The assessment of attributability and of the disability percentage is made by the service, under its own medical procedure.
What the scheme does not provide
Here the honest answer is short and it is important.
The scheme provides no pension and no gratuity for the four-year engagement period. That is stated in the notifications, and it is a structural feature of the scheme rather than an oversight or a matter awaiting clarification.
An Agniveer therefore completes four years of service, receives the Seva Nidhi package, and leaves without a pension. Any plan a candidate makes should start from that as the base case.
Retention at the end of four years — read this clause carefully
At the end of the engagement, a proportion of each batch may be enrolled into the regular cadre. The notifications set out three things about it, and each of the three matters independently.
- It is capped. The wording is "up to 25% of each specific batch".
- It is discretionary. The Navy's advertisement puts it as being "at the discretion of the Indian Navy", and enrolment is on merit.
- It is not a right. The same advertisement states in terms that an Agniveer "will not have any right to be selected".
Three of those words carry the weight: up to, discretion, and not. "Up to 25%" sets a ceiling and promises no floor. A discretion is exercised by the service, on its own criteria. And a scheme that says a candidate has no right to be selected has said so deliberately.
Most material written about this scheme leaves the plain consequence out. The ordinary outcome of an Agniveer engagement is that it ends after four years. That is the case the scheme is built around. It is the case a candidate should plan for. We have a separate article on what the rules provide at the end of the four years, and another on the retention clause specifically.
We state this clause as the notifications state it. We make no claim about how many are retained in practice, and no course — ours or anyone else's — changes a discretion exercised by a service.
What this scheme asks of a candidate
Stripped of everything else, an Agniveer entry asks a candidate for four things, in this order.
- Eligibility — age and education, set per service and per category, and revised between cycles. Confirm yours against the live notification before you spend a rupee on preparation.
- A written examination — the Army's CEE, the Agniveervayu online test, or the Navy's INET, depending on the service. Each has its own length, its own sections and its own marking scheme.
- A physical test — a timed run and strength events, with standards set per service. For the Navy this is not the third step but the second: the Physical Fitness Test gates a second written exam, and a candidate who does not qualify never sits it.
- A medical examination, against the service's own published standards.
Each stage is a filter, and each is passed on its own. Clearing the written paper well does not carry a candidate through the physical test, and the medical standard is applied independently of both.
Where to read the primary source
Every figure in this article comes from a recruitment notification or a scheme document published by a service. Those documents are the only authority, and they move between cycles.
- For the Army, read the recruitment notification issued by your Army Recruiting Office (ARO) for the current recruiting year.
- For Agniveervayu, read the current advertisement on the CASB recruitment portal.
- For the Navy, read the advertisement for the specific batch and entry on the Join Indian Navy portal.
If a figure you see anywhere — including here — disagrees with the notification you are applying under, the notification is right. Recruitment figures go stale quietly, and a number that was correct two cycles ago reads exactly like a number that is correct today.
Related reading
- The Three Services That Recruit Agniveers, and What Each One Is Looking For
- Who May Apply to Be an Agniveer, and Why Eligibility Moves Between Cycles
- What the Scheme Does Not Provide — the Exclusions, Set Out Together
- The End of the Four Years — What the Rules Provide, and What They Do Not
This article is general guidance written from publicly available recruitment notifications and scheme documents issued by the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force and the Ministry of Defence. Eligibility, exam patterns, physical standards, pay and scheme terms are revised with each recruitment cycle, and every figure stated here is pinned to the cycle it was read from. Always confirm current specifics against the live notification on the official portal of the service you are applying to. VSVSV is a private learning platform. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by the Ministry of Defence, the Indian Armed Forces, or any recruiting body. It takes no part in recruitment or selection.