The Agnipath scheme should remind us of the National Commission for Informal Labour. The Commission reported that only 0.4 per cent of casual sector workers receive social security benefits, such as the provident fund and others. The commission used the term ‘informalisation’ to refer to the phenomenon of labourers being forced to work without adequate social security and shifting from permanent jobs to contract systems. The UPA government had problems with the commission's poverty estimation, and there was no criticism of the committee’s assessment of the informalisation of the Indian labour market.
Whether we like it or not, neo-liberalism made labour a flexible capital. But this is a theory for only industrial capitalism. Nobody expected that there would be a time when the army would take to informalisation like any other capitalist industry. The difference between the state and private corporates is disappearing in this context.