The meeting of the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives called for Thursday to discuss India’s Agnipath scheme has been postponed due to lack of quorum.
The committee had also invited Foreign Affairs Minister Narayan Khadka to discuss the scheme but he did not go to the meeting. Similarly, CPN-UML lawmakers did not attend the meeting because of their party’s politburo meeting.
The government has suspended recruitment in the Indian Army citing lack of clarity about the scheme, which was recently announced by the Department of Military Affairs of India.
According to Arun Subedi, foreign affairs advisor to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Foreign Minister Khadka summoned Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava to the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday and informed him that there will be no recruitment of Nepali youths for now due to lack of clarity about the Agnipath scheme.
As announced by the Department of Military Affairs, the Agnipath plan has been brought to recruit 30,000-40,000 personnel below officer rank aged between 17.5 and 23 years annually for all three services, for a four-year tenure.
They would receive IRs 1.171 million as a tax-free severance package after the end of the four-year term and would not be entitled to pension and other retirement benefits.
