IPS officer Archana Ramasundram - First woman to head paramilitary force

New Delhi: Senior IPS officer Archana Ramasundram was on Monday appointed the Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). With this, she has become the first woman to head a paramilitary force.

Ramasundram is currently the Director, National Crime Records Bureau. She has been appointed to the post till the date of her superannuation (September 30 next year), an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

Ramasundram (58) is the first woman police officer to have been appointed the chief of a paramilitary force. The SSB is entrusted with guarding the country's frontiers with Nepal and Bhutan.

There are five paramilitary forces—the SSB, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police—and none has ever had a woman chief.

The Tamil Nadu cadre officer was in news in 2014 over her appointment as the Additional Director in the CBI. Her appointment was also challenged in the Supreme Court after which she was moved to the NCRB as its chief.

Besides her, IPS officers K Durga Prasad and KK Sharma have been appointed Director Generals of the CRPF and the BSF. They will take over after the incumbent chiefs of these forces retire at the end of this month.

Prasad, a 1981-batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre, was in 2014 unceremoniously removed as the chief of the Special Protection Group.