A Parliamentary panel has recommended that ‘some form of reservation’ be given to transgender people in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and that steps be taken to recruit them.

Batting for the recruitment of women in the CAPFs, the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, chaired by BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi said, “The Committee advocates that all necessary steps should be taken by MHA to encourage women to join Forces to the maximum possible extent. A major constraint that prevents women from joining forces is the difficult terrains and conditions in which they might have to work. So, a policy may be explored for women officers being given soft postings and not subjecting them to extremely strenuous and difficult working conditions, unless required in extreme circumstances like war, armed rebellion etc and that too when there is absolute shortage of males who can be deployed by the forces.”

“The Committee also recommends that some sort of reservation may also be given to transgenders. Steps may be taken to recruit transgenders as well so that they can be integrated well with mainstream society in near future,” it added.

“The Committee wishes to point out another imperative issue that is the percentage of women in Central Forces. Only 3.65% of vacancies for women have been filled till now. In BSF and SSB, it is only 14% to 15%, in CISF it is 6.35% and in ITBP it is 2.83 %. So, there are certain constraints which are preventing women from joining the forces. The representation of women personnel in CAPFs & AR is 3.76% as on September 30, 2022,” the report said.

“There is no specific reservation for women in CAPFs. However, in order to enhance the representation of women in CAPFs, in 2011, based on the recommendations of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Empowerment of Women, directions were issued to bring percentage of women in the forces to 5% within 3 year,” it further said.

The Committee presented its report on August 3 to the Rajya Sabha.