In the 12 years, between 1997 and 2009, encroachment of Defence Ministry land across the country has more than doubled — from around 7,000 acres to 14,500 acres. And it continues unabated both due to non-utilisation of the land and non-mutation of land records.
Being one of the biggest land holders in the country with more than 17 lakh acres of land, the Defence Ministry is also losing out big time on revenue as it has leased out 2,500 acres of land for an annual rent of a meager Rs 2.13 crore despite the market value of the land being a whopping Rs 11,033 crore. Despite this loss of revenue, the Defence Ministry is slow in drafting a policy. A peeved Parliamentary Standing Committee has asked the Ministry to bring out the policy in six months and apprise it of the salient features.
As regards encroachment of Defence land, the figure rose from 6,903 acres in January 2007 to 14,539.38 acres in July 2009. The panel was “deeply dismayed to note the unabated encroachments despite repeated wake up calls given by the CAG.” “Worse, non-mutation of land records and non-utilisation of vast tracts of Defence lands only encouraged encroachment,” the panel remarked, adding a large area of acquired land awaits mutation for a period ranging from one to 60 years.
The Defence Ministry clarified that mutation is carried out by the State Governments and most of the acquired lands have not been mutated in favour of the Ministry leading to considerable Defence lands being encroached upon by private persons and State Governments. However, the Standing Committee rapped the Ministry over the “casual approach” of Defence Estate Officers, which is part of the Ministry, to an important issue like mutation and said, “It seems no serious initiatives were taken to expedite the mutation.”
Defence land is occupied by the Army, IAF, Navy, Central and State Government organisations and civilian population. Approximately, two lakh acres are inside 62 cantonments and the rest 15.3 lakh acres is occupied by military and air force stations and among the three Services, the Army occupies almost 80 per cent of the land.
Now, most of the Defence land outside the cantonments is prime real estate and scams like Adarsh Group Housing Society are waiting to happen if the Defence Ministry does not take immediate measures to set its own house in order.
During the British era, these cantonment and Military Stations were planned and located at the outskirts of towns. Rapid urbanisation and pressure on land has now resulted in cantonment and stations areas becoming part of the city like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Ambala. In so far as the massive revenue loss is concerned, terming the annual rent of Rs 2.13 crore a “pittance considering the market value of the land”, the panel expressed concern over the Ministry’s response that it cannot fix responsibility and take action against errant officials for causing loss of revenue due to involvement of multiple authorities.
This land is leased out to private and public users. The Committee said “it is shocked” to note that no visible efforts were made to renew 3,780 cases of lease renewal, in 1,800 cases no requests were received for lease renewal and status of leases was unknown in 1,081 cases.
When asked to explain the delay in renewing leases, the Defence Ministry’s response and CAG audit revealed that in many cases the formal lease deed was not executed even after expiry of 60 years besides change of purpose, unauthorised constructions, family disputes amongst legal heir of deceased lessees and sub division of sites.