SOURCE: THE PRINT
The Army has initiated the process of hiring a second batch of 100 women recruits in the Corps of Military Police, a year after it first started recruiting women in this arm. A recruitment notification for 2020-21 to this effect has been floated by the Army. The induction of the second batch is scheduled for January 2021. Women in the age group of 17-and-a-half years to 21 years, who must have cleared their Class 10 board exam, are eligible for recruitment. They will have to send in their applications by 31 August.
The move is part of a plan to induct 100 women recruits every year, thus bringing in a total of 1,700 women recruits by 2036 and taking the percentage of women in the military police to 20 per cent of the cadre over a span of 17 years.
The Army, however, will conduct a review to assess if there is a need for more enrolment, said sources in the force.
The proposal to induct women in the military police was first moved by the Army in December 2017 and was finally approved by the government in January 2019.
The Army has been the only defence service to have initiated recruiting women below the rank of officers. The Navy and the Air Force do not have women in ranks below officers.
Push for more women recruits
The recruitment comes at a time the Army has deployed nearly 30 women soldiers from Assam Rifles near the Line of Control (at Tangdhar) for the first time, and is looking at inducting women recruits in branches other than the military police.
ThePrint was the first to report that the Army had initiated a study to recruit women in ranks other than officers in other branches along with the military police.
The first batch of 100 women military police started training in January 2020 at the Corps of Military Police Centre and School in Bengaluru. They are undergoing 62 weeks of training in basic and advanced provost training, after which they will be deployed to different units in the rank of Lance Naik by April 2021.
Army sources said women military police personnel in the future will have a role in the counter-insurgency environment as well as ceremonial and police duties such as crowd control and investigation of offences involving women and children.
Their terms and conditions of service, covering promotions, pay and allowances, will be similar to their male counterparts both during peacetime and operational work, the sources added.
