In a significant development, the Home Ministry has sought views of the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF), better known as paramilitary forces, on recruitment of transgender as Assistant Commandants.The MHA is mulling over commissioning of the third gender as officers in the ITBP, SSB, BSF and CRPF. The Home Ministry has now sought opinion of all CAPFs on the modalities on implementation of commissioning the third gender officers as Assistant Commandants.
The annual examination for recruiting ACs, who are Grade A officers, for this year, is scheduled to be held in December and if the MHA gets a positive response from the paramilitary forces, their comments will be shared with the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which will then incorporate transgender people as the third gender in the application forms. At present, there is no provision of hiring transgender people in the central paramilitary forces or even in the Indian Army.The development comes after Parliament passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019 last December.
The law states that no establishment shall discriminate against transgender persons in matters relating to employment, recruitment, promotion, and other related issues. It also provides for grievance redressal mechanism in each establishment and the establishment of a National Council for Transgender Persons. The Civil services examination rules, 2020, have already been notified on February 5, providing for inclusion of ‘Transgender’ as a separate category of gender for the said examination. Officials familiar with the development said the government first wants to start with the officers’ rank through the Staff Service Commission (SSC).