UP govt creates 3,786 posts for three women PAC battalions

A home department official on Tuesday said the battalions will be raised at Lucknow, Badaun and Gorakhpur.

The state government has created 3,786 posts of different ranks for three women battalions of Provincial Armed Constabularies (PAC). A home department official on Tuesday said the battalions will be raised at Lucknow, Badaun and Gorakhpur.

The state government has created 3,786 posts of different ranks for three women battalions of Provincial Armed Constabularies (PAC). (Himanshu Vyas\Hindustan Times (Representative image))

Additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Awasthi said the state government has created 1,262 posts each for the three women battalions and added that the notification for creation of the posts was issued on Monday and soon the recruitment process will be initiated.

Sharing the break-up of the posts, Awasthi said it included one commandant, three deputy commandants and nine assistant commandants each for the three battalions. He said other posts of all battalions included one Shivirpal (camp organiser), 24 inspectors, 75 sub-inspectors, 108 head constables, 842 constables, 5 sub-inspectors (ministerial) clerks and 10 additional sub-inspector (ministerial) clerks.

In addition, as many as 73 class four employees, 57 outsourced class four employees, one medical officer, two pharmacists, one radio inspector, 12 radio maintenance officers, 33 head operators, two assistant operators, one workshop assistant and two message carrier will be recruited, said Awasthi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had promised before the 2017 assembly elections of raising three all-women battalions of PAC in west, east and central Uttar Pradesh. The state government had earlier stated that the women battalions were required during agitation of women organisations and workers where male-dominated PAC battalions were often used to tackle women protestors.

In such situation, the male PAC personnel have to remain on back foot, which often delays maintaining law and order situations. Moreover, the move was to improve women participation in police force, an official said.

The state government had announced raising all three woman battalions in February 2018 and had started identifying 40 acres of land at the three locations for training and barracks for the women battalions.