Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has appealed to the youth to apply in 'Agnipath' scheme.
Authorities suspended internet services in several parts of Bihar in a bid to stop public gatherings and violent protests over the Agnipath recruitment scheme, police officials said on Saturday.
One person has died and more than a dozen have been injured in a series of protests in some regions of the country against the government's new policy to recruit soldiers for short tenures.
The Agnipath scheme or "path of fire" system aims to bring more people into the armed forces on four-year contracts to lower the average age of India's 1.38 million-strong armed forces and cut burgeoning pension costs, the government said.
Protesters, mainly young men, say the plan will limit opportunities for permanent jobs with the defence forces, which guarantee fixed salaries, pensions and other benefits.
Many took to the streets in Bihar, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal to protest against the scheme.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have been blocked in 18 of 38 districts of Bihar, said Sanjay Singh, a senior police official in Bihar, where protesters burned passenger trains and buses this week to express their outrage.
In Uttar Pradesh, police detained at least 250 people under what are called preventative arrests. Some demonstrators accused the police of using excessive force.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has appealed to youth to apply under the new scheme. The navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar said on Friday the protests were unexpected and probably the result of misinformation about the new system.
"I didn't anticipate any protests like this," Admiral R. Hari Kumar told Reuters TV partner ANI. "It is the single biggest human resource management transformation that has ever happened in the Indian military."