The Union Home Ministry recently published new rules allowing women to apply as direct-entry officers in border guarding force ITBP, the only paramilitary which hitherto did not allow ladies to join in supervisory combat roles owing to its primary task of guarding the difficult Sino-India border. Among the five of these forces, called the CAPFs, the Central Reserve Police Force and the Central Industrial Security Force have been allowing women to apply as direct-entry officers through the UPSC for a long time.
Two other forces – Border Security Force and Sashastra Seema Bal – were allowed to directly induct women officers in 2013 and 2014 respectively. By allowing the Indo-Tibetan Border Police to do so now, all restrictions have been lifted on women who want to don the camouflage combat colours of any of these forces.
The officer added the decision was taken by the government in the backdrop of Home Minister Rajnath Singh recently announcing that women will soon account for 33% of constable-rank personnel in CRPF and CISF and 15% in the border guarding forces BSF, SSB and ITBP.
For the first time this year, a CAPF got its first woman chief when IPS officer Archana Ramasundaram was appointed the new Director General of SSB.
ITBP, which guards the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control between India and China, had recently declared that it is soon going to deploy 500 women troops at its forward border posts in the Himalayas.
