Krishna Chaudhary takes over as new ITBP DG

New Delhi:  Senior IPS officer Krishna Chaudhary  took charge as the new chief of the border guarding force ITBP. 

The 1979-batch Bihar cadre officer was till now serving as the Director General (DG) of the Railway Protection Force under the Railway Ministry. After reaching the ITBP headquarters, the new DG was accorded a guard-of-honour and later given a briefing by senior officers.

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had issued orders for appointment of the officer last month as the post fell vacant on January 1 with the retirement of incumbent Subhas Goswami. Chaudhary, in his earlier stints, has served as the NDRF DG at the Centre and has also has worked in various capacities and police ranges in his home cadre of Bihar.

The officer is a recipient of service medals given by the President to meritorious and distinguished policemen. Chaudhary will retire in June, 2017 and this is one of the rare occasions in paramilitary forces’ history that a DG can be expected to hold the top post for over two years time as usually these posts are held by senior officials for a maximum of about 1.5 years as their superannuation comes by.

 The officer takes over the reins of the ITBP, an about 50,000 personnel strong force, at a time when it is at the forefront of expanding its units and role to secure the 3,488km-border with China. 

The force, whose troops are popularly called ‘Himveers’ by the virtue of their heavy deployment along the Himalayan terrain, is also tasked to render a variety of internal security tasks in the country including VIP protection and conducting anti-Naxal operations.