By Vishal Gulati Chandigarh, March 8 : As the world celebrates the International Women's Day on Wednesday, the City Beautiful, as Chandigarh is popularly known as, boasts of its resilient Nari-Shakti, which contributes to building the city with dedication by breaking barriers and shattering stereotypes. 2013-batch IPS officer, Kanwardeep Kaur, is the new incumbent for the post of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP). Currently, the women in khaki dominate all important positions ranging from managing law and order to security to manning traffic. The other strong and inspiring women Indian Police Services (IPS) officers are 2011-batch Manisha Chaudhary and 2018-batch AGMUT cadre officer Shruti Arora. While Manisha Chaudhary, who joined Chandigarh Police in November 2020, is the first woman SSP (traffic and security), Shruti Arora, who is brought up in Chandigarh and did graduation from University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Panjab University, is the SP (City) responsible for law and order situation. Besides three IPS officers, the city boasts of seven women Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSPs). They are Palak Goel, who is manning law and order; Sita Devi, heading the women and child crime cell; Harjeet Kaur and Gurjeet Kaur, both handling traffic; Manju Sharma, heading the welfare department; Niyti Mittal, who heads Economic Offences Wing; Jaswinder Kaur, who is in-charge of training. Former IPS officer Kiran Bedi was the first women Inspector General of Chandigarh Police. In 1968, she did post-graduation in political science from Panjab University here. For the youngsters she is an inspiration. She was the only woman in a batch of 80 men, and became the first woman IPS officer of the country at the age of 24. She owes her personal development in academics and sports to this vibrant city. It was in the city that she won Northern India Lawn Tennis Championship, her first major tennis tournament, in 1970. Energetic and visionary Anindita Mitra, a 2007 batch IAS officer, is the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation Commissioner. Her aim is to make the City Beautiful number one in cleanliness, greenery and pollution-free, besides priority to fulfill aspirations of 7.1 lakh residents. Under her leadership, the civic body's campaign "Chandigarh Ki Naari, Gandagi pe Bhari", aimed at acknowledging women's contribution to a clean city, concluded on International Women's Day. Thirty women, comprising safai mitras, toilet cleaners and material recovery facility workers, were facilitated as part of the women empowerment celebrations. Chandigarh ranked 12th among cities with more than 1 lakh population in the 2022 Swachh Survekshan rankings that were declared in October last. For improving score from 71.3 to 82.7 per cent to move four positions up from 16th rank in 2021, the credit goes to Mitra, who says the civic body focused on improving service delivery and citizen involvement. "We will continue to work towards improving our ranking further," she told IANS. On the Women's Day, Chandigarh Smart City tweets, "Let's see how beneficial the cycle tracks are for women of Chandigarh!!" and "Let's see how safe and secure women feel in Chandigarh with CCTV Surveillance!!" Here's another incredible woman at the helm is Priyanka Mehtani, a 2015-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS), who was appointed the new Regional Passport Officer (RPO) for Chandigarh last month. She graduated from S.D. College in Sector 32 and LLB from Panjab University. She belongs to Chandigarh. Prior to joining Chandigarh, she had served in Hong Kong, Portugal, and New Delhi. Her top priorities include delivering passports in a timely, transparent, more accessible and reliable manner. She's the first IFS in a decade who has been appointed as an RPO here. Previously, the post was headed by IPS officers. Her predecessor, Sibash Kabiraj, was a 1999-batch IPS officer of the Haryana cadre. Among the new breed of empowered politicians is the second-time Member of Parliament Kirron Kher. BJP's Kher won from Chandigarh in May 2019 with a margin of 46,970 votes. She defeated her closest rival, Pawan Kumar Bansal of the Congress, despite the "outsider" tag in her debut election five years ago. She's the motivation for the women to take charge of making the city plastic-free and green. Saluting the spirit of the Nari Shakti, Kher, in a tweet, said, "Paying respects to the strength, wisdom, kindness, bravery, empathy and divinity of all women on this #InternationalWomansDay !" (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at gulatiians@gmail.com) /IANS