Wish to dedicate this post to women, says first female paramilitary chief

India’s first woman chief of a paramilitary force, Archana Ramasundram, on Wednesday dedicated her appointment as the Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal to the women of the country and said she would work for increasing their representation in the force.

The 1980 batch Indian Police Service officer of Tamil Nadu cadre was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour by SSB troops at the force headquarters as she took charge of her new post on Wednesday and donned the ‘khaki’ uniform with the paramilitary insignia.

Ramasundram, who was the Director of National Crime Records Bureau in her previous posting, is the first woman chief in over six-decade-long combined history of the five paramilitary forces -- Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Indo- Tibetan Border Police and SSB.

A resident of Uttar Pradesh, Ramasundram holds two masters degrees, one each in arts and science.

After taking charge, the new SSB DG told reporters: “I will always remember this day in my life and I wish to dedicate it to the women of India.”

The 58-year-old said, “Leadership is more important than gender for tackling challenging assignments” and she would work on increasing the representation of women in the force.

“Wherever I have worked earlier, I have tried to do the same work, but differently. I will try doing the same here and also see how can we increase the representation of women in the force and also in an overall manner,” she said, adding there is no dearth of talent among women and they only need an opportunity to prove themselves.

Ramasundram, who was appointed as SSB chief on Monday after the Appointments Committee of Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared her name for the job, said a “good beginning” has been made in these forces were women are nominated to take charge at the top.

Noting she belonged to middle class family, the new SSB chief said if women have faith in themselves they can achieve anything.

Soon after the traditional welcome by senior SSB officials, Ramasundram was briefed about the duties and current deployment of SSB along the Nepal and Bhutan borders and other units in the internal security grid of the country.

The SSB guards the 1,751 km-long Indo-Nepal and 699 km-long Indo-Bhutan borders apart from rendering a variety of tasks in the internal security domain.

The new DG, who was away in Bhopal for a conference when the government order for her appointment was issued, arrived late Tuesday night.

The officer, who retires in September next year, was in news in 2014 over her appointment as Additional Director in the Central Bureau of Investigation. Her appointment was challenged in the Supreme Court after which she was moved to NCRB as its chief.

She earlier served at the Centre as CBI Joint Director. She was Additional DG of Crime Branch-CID in Tamil Nadu. During her tenure, Tamil Nadu raised all women police stations and an all-women commando unit.