Archana Ramasundaram is SSB chief

Senior IPS officer Archana Ramasundaram was on Monday appointed Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the first woman to head a paramilitary force.

Ms. Ramasundaram, a 1980 batch officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, is currently Special Director, National Crime Records Bureau. She has been appointed to the post till the date of her superannuation — September 30, 2017 — an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

58-year-old Ms. Ramasundaram is the first woman police officer to be appointed chief of a paramilitary force. The SSB is entrusted with guarding the country’s frontiers with Nepal and Bhutan. The other four paramilitary forces are the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force and Indo Tibetan Border Police.

The officer was in the news in 2014 over her appointment as Additional Director in the CBI.

Her appointment was challenged in the Supreme Court by the Tamil Nadu government, after which she was moved to the NCRB as its chief.

IPS officers K. Durga Prasad and K.K. Sharma have been appointed Directors General of CRPF and BSF respectively. They will take over after the incumbent chiefs of these forces retire at the end of this month.

Mr. Prasad, a 1981 batch IPS officer of the Andhra Pradesh cadre, was unceremoniously removed in 2014 as chief of the Special Protection Group during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Nepal to attend the SAARC summit.