DEFENCE LAND

BY Sameer Chougaonkar
The NDA regime is trying hard to acquire land for the industry. Its Land Acquisition
Bill was meant to make this easy. It didn't pass
Now, it wants to acquire the huge chunks of defence land lying unused
The bounty 17 lakh acres of 'defence land' but only 1.5 lakh acres is under cantonments
The defence ministry owns 81,815 acres of 'excess land holdings'
Over 5,000 acres are under golf courses, 15,000 acres occupied illegally
After failing to get its version of the Land Acquisition Bill passed by the parliament, the
Narendra Modi regime has set sights on government land. According to credible
sources, the Prime Ministers' Office is planning to take over unutilised land of the
defence ministry. The ministry has been asked to furnish details of "all plots that have
not been used". Also read - Land Bill: how farmers and the Opposition made Modi govt
back down Sitting on a treasure The defence ministry is India's richest ministry in
terms of land ownership. It had informed the parliament last year that it "possesses a
land pool of around 17.31 lakh acres". But only 1.57 lakh acres of this is situated within
the country's 62 notified cantonments.
Nearly 80% of the defence ministry's land is in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab,
Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Some 17 states and Union Territories have over
10,000 acres of defence land each. The army controls about 80% of the defence land,
the air force about 9% and the navy 2%. The rest is with other departments of the
defence ministry. The total cost of the land is estimated to be over Rs 80 lakh crore.
'Unauthorised use of land for golf couses', says CAG report PMO is using to get unused
defence land The government acquires land for "defence" only after specifying the
purpose. Hence, there is no surplus defence estate as such. Yet, a large amount of this
land is lying vacant or unused since the purpose of its acquisition has not been fulfilled
yet.
More than 5,000 acres of the "defence land" are under 95 golf courses maintained by
the ministry. According to a December 2013 report of the parliament's Public Accounts
Committee on Defence Estates Management, the defence ministry possesses "excess
land holdings of 81,815 acres, an area roughly equivalent to the city of Surat". The cost
of this land is estimated at around Rs 4 lakh crore. Going to waste The ministry,
however, is loath to part with the unused land, claiming that it might be used for "future
security requirements". While it finds a use for the land, it's being slowly encroached.
Cantonment areas were originally conceived to be situated on the outskirts of cities. But
rapid urbanisation has turned land holdings inside and outside cantonments into
prime real estate. According to the CAG, more than 15,000 acres of defence land across
India had been encroached upon until 2009. It's market value was pegged at close to Rs
65,000 crore. Also read - How the Modi government had to eat humble pie on the land
ordinance As much as 58% of the defence land in Daman & Diu has been encroached
upon, and about 11% in Chhattisgarh. In Bihar and Jammu & Kashmir, this figure
stands at 4% and 3%, respectively. In terms of sheer acreage, Uttar Pradesh has seen the

largest grab of defence land, of about 3,142 acres. It's followed by Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra and Haryana, in that order. The defence ministry claims it's trying to
recover this land by "expediting eviction proceedings under the law". It has also
strengthened "defence land management system through measures such as
computerisation of records, audits, surveys, and demarcation and verification of lands".
Fertile ground for graft Yet, mismanagement and corruption have ensured that excess
defence land continues to be misused. Indeed, several scams involving defence land
have surfaced in recent years, including in Sukna and the Adarsh Housing scandal. In
most cases, defence personnel have allegedly been actively complicit. The CAG, over the
years, has pointed towards several glaring instances of irregularities in the management
of defence estate.
In a damning November 2011 report, the CAG had noted: Defence land is commercially
exploited to bolster the Regimental Fund, and not the government exchequer. There's
unauthorised use of defence land for golf courses and the revenue generated from them
is diverted to Regimental Fund and not the government account. There are large-scale
errors in land calculation sheets made available by the local military authorities and in
the land records of Defence Estate Officers pertaining. Timely mutation of lands in
favour of the defence ministry has been delayed. Computerisation of defence land
records under the 'Raksha Bhoomi' project is far from satisfactory.
There's gross mismanagement of leases in the absence of a monitoring mechanism for
timely renewal of leases. Disregarding strict government instructions, commanders
of three stations re-appropriated defence buildings or land for private use. The report
also expressed "disappointment at the ministry's sidetracking of the CAG's
recommendation for having an independent regulator for defence land".
Striking a bargain According to the sources, the PMO has cited this very report to
"convince" the defence ministry to "give up unused land holdings for other purposes of
public welfare". The ministry, however, does not seem willing to give up its claim on the
land even though, according to the PMO sources, "land acquisition remains one of the
biggest hurdles in implementing the government's economic agenda. The ministry has
reportedly argued that the land would be used "to give impetus to the Make in India
campaign in the defence sector". The NDA government has been wooing domestic and
foreign firms to manufacture defence equipment in India. And setting up new defence
manufacturing industries would obviously require large tracts of land. Defence ministry
owns excess land of 81,815 acres, an area the size of Surat. Value: Rs 4 lakh crore Still,
experts argue that "optimum utilisation of urban defence land can help finance
infrastructure needs of our cities". A Financial Express report estimates that "utilisation
of defence land in just four cities of Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune and Lucknow can provide
for 29 lakh housing units". This would fulfill 15% of this country's affordable housing
requirement. Clearly, this need not be a choice between defence and development. But it
won't be easy, even for the PMO, to convince the defence ministry to give up its prized
by Deepak Sharma.

__._,_.___