Image used for representational purpose only.

PATNA: The first raising day of country’s only tribal women battalion named Bihar Police Swabhiman Vahini, was celebrated with pomp and show at Mithilesh stadium (BMP-5) in Patna on Friday.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar was the chief guest on the occasion of the first raising day, which at present, has 222 women recruits undergoing rigorous training.

“Don’t look at faces of these women recruits who are still undergoing training. Look at their feet that are marching at a pace to compete equally with their male counterpart,” Kumar said, while speaking on the occasion.

“These tribal recruits are still undergoing training but the way they marched today at the stadium, reflected their determination and the efforts they have put in,” the CM said in the praise of the women recruits tightly holding self-loading rifles (SLR) in their arms.

The headquarters of the tribal women battalion is Valmikinagar in West Champaran, the area which has huge count of Tharu tribes in the area. At present, all recruits are undergoing training at Bihar Military Police (BMP-2) at Dehri-on-Son in Rohtas district . Apart from the tribal women battalion, Bihar police also has a women battalion.

The CM said that he was elated to say that the raising day of a battalion was celebrated, which was nowhere else in the country and Bihar was the first one to raise such.

Kumar also expressed his surprise that some of the recruits even had qualification like MSc in Physics and other subjects.

“Within next two to three years, the battalion would be completely raised,” he said.

“I came to know through DGP KS Dwivedi that central government was putting efforts that police forces should have one-third of women personnel but here in Bihar, we already have 38% reservation for women, which is even higher than what Centre is trying for,” he said.

Meanwhile, DGP Dwivedi in his speech said that the tribal women battalion was formed in September 2014 and 675 posts were sanctioned for it.

“It was in 2015 that recruitment advertisement for the battalion were published for first time but after sactifactoty numbers of application, written exams were conducted in December 2017 followed by physical test in March this year after which their training commenced from May,” Dwivedi said.

“In 2006, Bihar police had mere 880 women which was 1.23% of the entire force. This has risen to 15.62% with 13,701 women personnel this year,” he added.

