How Charu Sinha IPS figured among ‘23 Innovators of 2023’

Srinagar: The day after the Republic Day last week, Bureaucrats India nominated 23 officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and other Central services as ‘Change-makers of 2023’ for the year’s most impressive performance at the grass root of the Indian bureaucracy. This was followed by a list of ‘23 Innovators of 2023’ from the same services.
Fifty-four-year-old lady Police officer from Telangana, Charu Sinha (IPS-1996), India’s first woman to head four sectors in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), figured at the top of the list of ‘Innovators-2023’.
Alongside her counterterror operations, Charu executed an innovative programme of psychosocial support in which 28,000 personnel of the 22 battalions under her command were trained in two years of her tenure in Kashmir. As many as 58 CRPF personnel committed suicide in 2021 when Charu took over as IG Srinagar Sector. It emerged as a major in-house challenge for the force.
While supervising a large number of counterterror and intelligence gathering operations in the most challenging sectors of the Naxalite and separatist insurgency, Charu initiated ‘Love You Zindagi’ (LUZ), a stress relieving programme in the paramilitary force in Bihar and carried the same to Kashmir and Telangana. Designed by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, ‘LUZ’ earned her the FICCI Smart Policing Award in 2022.
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After serving three of the country’s most challenging sectors, including one each in Jammu and Srinagar, Charu is currently Inspector General of Police (IGP), CRPF, Southern Sector, at Hyderabad. She holds the distinction of being the first woman posted as IG in the CRPF's Jammu, Srinagar and Southern sectors.
A graduate in English literature, History and Political Science from St. Francis College for Women in Hyderabad and a postgraduate in Political Science from Hyderabad Central University, Charu joined IPS in 1996.
In Jammu and Srinagar, Charu took on the role of commanding counterterror operations, shouldered the responsibility for operational control and efficiency of the Units deployed in the area of responsibility of the Sector. She personally led, monitored and supervised the conduct of several anti-terrorist operations through the valley Quick Action Team (QAT).
A large number of terrorists were neutralised or arrested in such operations which were conducted in close coordination with the Jammu and Kashmir Police and other security forces. They included Saleem Parray of Hajan in January 2022 and two Pakistani terrorists of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba who were killed in an encounter at Bishamber Nagar, Srinagar in April 2022.
During her period in CRPF, she took various initiatives to improve living conditions and general welfare of jawans and their capacity building through various trainings. Sustained efforts were made in handling their physical, mental and emotional health, welfare and overall discipline.
Working under disturbed conditions from home to work places, the paramilitary personnel sometimes underwent serious behavioural changes in certain conflict areas. Sometimes jawans were not able to withstand the pressures arising out of different types of family, social, economic, personal and professional circumstances.
In such a situation, despair and depression used to increase so much that under pressure, a jawan used to take extreme steps like ending his life.
Charu, who had worked in Bihar in 2018 to create awareness on the problems arising due to gender discrimination in the force, studied and assessed these circumstances after coming to Srinagar. With the support of Amrita and ‘People for Parity’ she introduced ‘LUZ’. It was operated with a grid of 50 Master Trainers and 550 Frontline Trainers who trained 28,000 personnel.
In the week-long course, each group of jawans was taught and explained how to identify and sort out the issues arising out of all kinds of pressures. The great mantra of the course was – Happy jawan, Happy family, Happy force.
According to‘LUZ’ trainers, there were hundreds of success stories of transformation.
“After attending this programme, thousands of our boys bought scooties for their wives and shared with them their burden of patriarchy. Previously, they took the entire burden at home, from the construction of a house to admission and supervision of their children at the school on their own shoulders. They would seldom make their spouses partner in such responsibility and retain patriarchy. Even on leave they used to run for errands. Their holiday was rarely a holiday. LUZ brought relief to thousands of such depressed families", said an officer while explaining how interpersonal dynamics changed at their homes.
The trainers in LUZ course primarily focussed on cognitive distortion, financial management, communication skills and gender conversation.
One of the trainers narrated how LUZ brought happiness to the chronically depressed homes of the jawans.
“Previously many of them used to argue and quarrel with their spouses and children on the phone. After the training, they shared partnership and empowered their spouses while giving them scooties and UPI smart cards. We witnessed a case in which the father of a jawan, posted in Srinagar, suffered a heart attack at 2:00 am in his home State. His wife and mother rushed him to hospital on the scootie and saved his life. It made all family members relieved and happy”, he said.

Updated On 2/1/2024 1:52:08 AM