Planning to recruit more Agniveers from Ladakh and Northeast, says Indian Navy chief

Indian Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar on Wednesday said the Indian Navy wants to expand the representation of different districts in the Agniveer scheme to 100 percent.

He said the Indian Navy has started the outreach mission with the Agniveer scheme which currently has representation from around 656 districts of the country in the Navy.

“We found that there is very little representation from Ladakh and the northeast region in the Navy. We are planning to go to Manipur and other states,” he added.


The first batch of Navy Agniveers passed out from INS Chilka, Navy’s premier training establishment for sailors' ab-initio training upon induction on March, 28 this year. The POP marked the successful completion of training of close to 2,600 Agniveers, including 273 women Agniveers who were undergoing training at Chilka.

It was the first-ever passing out of the Agniveers from any training institution of the country post successful completion of ab-initio training -- a significant landmark towards a new beginning for the Armed Forces and the Nation.

In line with their transformation to Sea Warriors, the Agniveers underwent 16 weeks of ab-initio training at INS Chilka, the premier sailors' training establishment of the Indian Navy.

The successful trainees were deployed on frontline warships for their Sea training.

On June 14, 2022, the Defence Minister and the three Service chiefs launched the Agnipath Scheme.