First woman to head paramilitary force

Archana Ramasundram, a senior IPS officer who is the director of the National Crime Records Bureau became the Director-General of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). She took the honour of becoming the first woman IPS officer to head the Central Armed Police Forces.

Ramasundram is a 1980 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IPS officer. Now she is the first woman posted to head a border guarding force. Her post will continue till September 2017. The SSB she is heading is deployed along India’s border with Nepal and Bhutan.

India has five paramilitary forces and none of them ever had a woman chief. The five are: SSB, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force and Indo Tibetan Border Police.

Recently, Ramasundram’s appointment as additional director of CBI has stirred some controversy as she joined CBI without formally getting relieved from her parent cadre, Tamil Nadu. The move to assign her there was challenged in the Supreme Court. The court restrained her from discharging duties in the agency. After that, she was appointed head of the National Crime Records Bureau.

Along with her, IPS officers–K Durga Prasad and KK Sharma–have been appointed Director Generals of CRPF and BSF, respectively. By the end of this month, they will take command after the incumbent chiefs of these forces retire.

Prasad is a 1981 batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre. However, in 2014, he was unceremoniously removed as chief of the Special Protection Group. They are the group which gives security to the Prime Minister, former Prime Ministers and their family members at the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Nepal to attend the Saarc summit. Last year January, he was appointed as Special Director General of the CRPF.

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