It has been almost over six years that the recruitment trials for the Armed Forces were held in Visakhapatnam.
With the Union Government announcing the Agnipath recruitment scheme, the aspirants from the age of 17 years, are eagerly looking forward to the trials that are set to begin from Sunday, at the Indira Priyadarshini GVMC Stadium here.
About 120 youth, including around 40 girls, have trained under Subedar (Retd) M.A.N. Reddy, and they are eager to prove their mettle on the dusty tracks of the stadium.
Two years back, the selection was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but now they are keen to make it to the Armed Forces. “They have been training hard for the last two months and we are expecting that at least 40 will be selected,” said Mr. Reddy.
He had retired from the Indian Army EME Regiment in 2014, and for the last two to three years he has been training the youth for the army selection trials, free of cost.
He himself was a national-level athlete and had participated in 100 and 200 mt runs. He is also the current gold medallist in the 100 mt veterans meet.
According to Mr. Reddy, the selection for the army and navy could be gruelling. For army selection one has to run a 1.6 km cross country race in 5.30 minutes, finish 10 pull ups, cross a nine-foot ditch and a few obstacles. Thereafter, they have to undergo a medical test and a written test.
As per the Army recruitment office, about 60,000 applications have been received from the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh for the Visakhapatnam selection trials. Candidates from the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh including Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Parvathipuram Manyam, Alluri Sitharama Raju, Anakapalli, Konaseema, Eluru, Kakinada and NTR, and Yanam (district of UT Puducherry) will be screened for categories that include Agniveer General Duty, Agniveer Technical, Agniveer Clerk / Store Keeper Technical, Agniveer Tradesman 10th pass and Agniveer Tradesman 8th pass.
The idea is to allocate one date for each district and to accommodate about 4,000 candidates on a daily basis. The selection trials will be held from August 14 to 31.
Though there is some disappointment among the aspirants that the tenure has been reduced to four years under the Agnipath scheme, many of them say that after four years, if they are not retained, then they have the option to join the paramilitary forces.
The government has already announced that they will be preferred for paramilitary and that is a good option. On one hand they will get a sizable amount post completion of the four years and on the other they will have the option to take up another job at a young age, said Mr. Reddy.
