DefMin to digitise land records soon
The Defence Ministry is one of the biggest land owners in the country, holding more than 17.3 lakh acres, but nearly 11,455 acres of its land has been encroached. Among others, Uttar Pradesh tops the list of illegal occupiers with more than 3,000 acres followed by Madhya Pradesh (MP) with 1,542 acres of encroachment.
Mired by land scams like Adarsh Housing Society, the Defence Ministry is now setting its house in order by computerising land records, reorganising Directorate General of Defence Estates and taking strict action against officials engaged in wrongdoings.
The Ministry has also roped in IIT Roorkee, Delhi Technological University and National Institute of Technology, Allahabad for carrying scientific survey within nearly 30-odd cantonments all over the country. Moreover, they will now be using Electronic Total Station (ETS) for survey of land outside cantonments for faster digitisation of records.
Incidentally, the land records of the Ministry in many parts of the country are more than 100 years old and encroachments over the years — due to pressure on land and ever expanding towns and cities — has made the job of updating records all the more difficult.
As regards the State-wise list of encroachment, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley informed Parliament that 3,142.424 acres of land is encroached in UP with MP coming second with 1,542.403 acres followed by Maharashtra 1,512.066 acres. He tabled the list of encroachment of 35 States and Union Territories with Delhi recording 113.5997 acres.
Haryana also reported more than 1,000 acres while Mumbai has approximately 77.14 acres under encroachment. Defence land includes those in possession of the Army, which is the biggest owner, IAF, Navy, Ordnance Factories and Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) and ports, airbases and field firing ranges are also part of defence land.
Amongst the three Services, the Army holds 13.79 lakh acres while the IAF has 1.51 lakh acres and Navy 0.37 lakh acres. Of the total 17.3 lakh acres, around two lakh acres are within the 62 cantonments in 19 States.
Concerned over the mismanagement of Defence land and encroachments, coupled with scams, the Comptroller and Auditor General has also repeatedly pulled up the Ministry and the Services for irregularities. Moreover, the Supreme Court also took cognisance of this serious issue in March and asked the Centre to give details about its plan to tackle encroachment.
Rocked by Defence land scams, the UPA Government — two years back — banned issuing of No-Objection Certificate (NOC) by the Services for building structures on land adjacent to cantonments. Moreover, the Government then decided that any sale of defence land will only be approved by the Union Cabinet.