Transpeople to be part of elite paramilitary forces

New Delhi

Working upon the modalities in that direction, the Ministry of Home Affairs has sought suggestions and comments from the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) on the matter.

The Ministry is working on the proposal to commission the “third gender” as officers in the paramilitary forces. It has sought the opinion of all CAPFs on the modalities on implementation of commissioning third gender officers as Assistant Commandants. The Ministry in a letter to CAPF on July 1, under the subject “Central Armed Police Forces (Assistant Commandants) Examination 2020 -Comments on draft rules regarding” sought suggestions from the forces over the issue. It stated, “...the comments for incorporating the issues on transgender as Third gender along with Male/Female in the rules of CAPF (AC) Examination, 202 is yet to be received from CRPF, ITBP, SSB and CISF.” The Ministry said that the forces are “once again requested to examine” the issue and furnish comments on July 2, 2020 positively for taking a final view on the matter.

Recently, the Indian government took several steps for upliftment of the transgender community. On March 17, the Minister of State for Social justice and Empowerment Rattan Lal Kataria in Lok Sabha stated that in order to provide for protection of rights of transgender persons and their welfare, recently, The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, has been enacted with the effect from January 10, 2020.

The lawmaker also stated that during 2019-20, Rs 5 crore was allocated for the welfare of transgender persons. The minister has also stated that transpeople are entitled to all kinds of reservations such as Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in cases of admission in educational institutions and for government jobs in their respective category.