Subsequent to the Government’s transformative announcement on 14^th June, 2022 on a 4 year engagement of ‘Agniveers’ by the Armed Forces under the ‘Agnipath Scheme’, Department of Telecom (DoT) held a meeting with all the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) on date (15.6.2022). Ways and means on how the telecom sector in general and TSPs in particular can make use of the talent, discipline and acquired skills of the trained ‘Agniveers’ who will be coming out after 4 years of service with the Armed Forces were discussed at the meeting.  Representatives of all the 4 TSPs (Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Jio and Vodafone-Idea) attended the meeting along with Senior Officers of DoT. The meeting  was chaired by Member(Technology) at Sanchar Bhawan.  

During discussions, some areas were identified in which engagement/ employment of ‘Agniveers’ could be done. These include Optical Fibre Maintenance, Air Conditioning equipment, Provision of infrastructure especially last mile connectivity, Fibre to Home (FTTH), and in Customer Interface areas.   TSPs agreed that the talent pool of trained/skilled and disciplined youth that would become available as a result of this Scheme could be an asset for the country including the telecom sector. It was decided that  TSPs would shortly  revert with inputs on specific trades/skill sets they were looking for. It could then be explored if  training in these specific aspects/areas could be provided to these ‘Agniveers’ during their stint in the Armed Forces so that they are industry-ready, when they complete their Agnipath service.

RKJ/M