Centre May Fall Back On Senior IPS Officers To Fill Director General Positions In BSF, CISF, NSG

There are three Central Police Organisations (CPOs) in the country, including the Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the National Security Guard (NSG), which are currently functioning without regular chiefs.

In two of the three CPOs – the BSF and the NSG – the top positions are lying vacant due to the recent reshuffle of senior IPS officers by the government, and in the CISF due to superannuation.  

In case of the CISF, then Director General (DG) Neena Singh, a 1989-batch Rajasthan Cadre IPS officer, retired from services on July 31. The government had issued an order a day ahead to assign the additional charge of the force to Anish Dayal Singh, a 1988-batch IPS officer of Manipur Cadre, who is currently holding the office of the DG, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

This ad hoc arrangement will remain there till the government decides to appoint a regular incumbent, and an order in this regard is awaited.

In the first week of this month, the government has decided to repatriate then BSF DG Nitin Agrawal to his home cadre (Kerala). Additional charge of the force was given to Daljit Singh Chawdhary, the DG of the Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB), till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further order.

In a single order issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the cadre-controlling agency for the IPS, it was decided to remove Agrawal and his deputy, Special DG (West) YB Khurania. Both of them were repatriated to their respective home cadres with immediate effect.

Apparently, the move was seen as a fallout of the recent spike in terror incidents and infiltrations in Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the Jammu region. According to data, 14 civilians and 14 security personnel have died, while 24 encounter/counter-terror operations and 11 terror-initiated incidents have been reported this year in the Union Territory till July 21.

Agrawal, a 1989-batch Kerala cadre officer, had taken charge as the BSF chief in June last year. He is due to retire in 2026. But sources in the know of the development told The Secretariat that the two IPS officers have been repatriated to their respective home cadres Kerala and Odisha respectively "not because of any operational reasons, but due to serious differences they had between them".

A source, while confirming the reasons for their repatriations, said, “The DG of the BSF was sent back to home cadre not because of any operational reasons or professional limitations. There were serious differences between him and his subordinates in senior positions. Several times they were nudged by senior officials in the MHA to sort out the differences and focus on the most important assignments of managing the crisis in the eastern and the western flanks of the country.”

Further elaborating on the reasons for the repatriation, the sources said that the force was deployed in key locations as the situation was going from bad to worse, and it reached a level where they started claiming “my force versus your force”, which was not in sync with the no-nonsense approach of the MHA under Home Minister Amit Shah.

The BSF guards nearly 2,290 km of international border along Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat in India’s western flank. The Jammu area is vulnerable to cross-border tunnels and its dense forests and mountainous terrain make it an ideal ground for terrorists to launch attacks against civilians and security forces.

In the case of the NSG, then DG Nalin Prabhat was charted out to election-bound troubled Jammu & Kashmir and was sent as the Special Director General of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police. He will take over as the DGP after the retirement of incumbent RR Swain on September 30.  The CRPF DG Anish Dayal Singh was given the “additional” charge of the NSG.

Before being sent to J&K, Prabhat, a 1992 IPS of Andhra Pradesh cadre, was accorded inter-cadre deputation and shifted to the AGMUT cadre for a period of three years. He is a three-time police gallantry medal winner and has also headed the specialised anti-Naxal police force ‘Greyhounds’ of Andhra Pradesh. He has extensively served in the CRPF as he headed its Kashmir region deployment as the IG operations and ADG.

With the government now looking for regular DGs for these coveted CAPFs, the grapevine is abuzz that DGPs of Bihar and Assam – RR Bhatti (IPS: 1990) and GP Singh (IPS: 1991) respectively - are likely to come on central deputation. They are going to be given regular charge as DG in either of the three CAPFs.  Also, there have been talks in the power corridor that Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, a 1988-batch IPS officer of Tamil Nadu Cadre, may be shifted to any of these CAPFs. Before taking over his current position, he was serving as the DG of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).