Only 2.28% women in paramilitary forces

Women constitute just 2.28% in paramilitary forces, the government said in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, as it cited hazardous working conditions and staying away from family as some of the reasons for their low representation.

There are just 20,568 women among 8.99 lakh-strong paramilitary forces with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has the highest representation of 5.12% women followed by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at 2.15%.

The state police forces have 6.44% women in their ranks though the Centre has been insisting states to speed up recruitment of fairer sex and achieve the 33% target.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said, “hazardous working conditions, difficult isolated place of posting, non availability of accommodation and other facilities in far flung and other isolated areas, staying away from the family, better job opportunities elsewhere could be some of the challenges for women to join forces.”

However, he said, the representation of women in paramilitary forces has increased over the years. For the first time in the history of seven paramilitary forces, Archana Ramasundaram became the first woman to head a force — Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) — last month.

Of the 1.27 lakh women personnel, CISF has 6,546 women while CRPF has 6,385 women out of 2.96 lakh personnel. BSF has 4,179 women out of 2.50 lakh personnel while ITBP has 1,662 women out of 82,103 personnel. SSB has 1,204 women out of 77,605 and Assam Rifles 592 women out of 65,544.

A close look at the figures also showed that the number of women in the senior positions is also very less.