In first, govt nod to raise all-women CISF battalion

A first-ever all-women Central Industrial Security Force reserve battalion comprising more than 1,000 personnel has been sanctioned by the Union government keeping in mind the burgeoning duties of the force at airports and other vital installations.

Officials told PTI that the unit will be raised from within the sanctioned manpower of the force of about two lakh personnel.

The Union home ministry issued a sanction order this week approving an exclusive women reserve unit in the force with a total strength of 1,025 personnel led by a senior commandant-rank officer, they said.

The CISF has 12 reserve battalions under its establishment at present.

As the name suggests, these units are kept in reserve and used as reinforcement when the force gets a new job like temporary duties of conducting elections and permanent tasks of guarding an installation like the Parliament House complex that came under CISF cover this year, an official said.

The force has a huge women interface at facilities like the 68 civil airports that it guards, the Delhi Metro and historical monuments like the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort.

The force had projected a requirement of having an all-women reserve battalion which has been recently sanctioned, a home ministry official said.

Apart from these installations, the 1969-raised CISF provides a counter-terrorist security cover to a number of facilities in the nuclear and aerospace domain apart from those in the private sector like the Infosys offices in Bengaluru and Pune, Reliance refinery in Jamnagar (Gujarat), among others.