1,866 acres of cantonment land encroached upon: Defence data

The Ministry of Defence also released data regarding encroachment of defence land other than cantonment land in the various states across the country with the data revealing that 870 acres of defence land managed by the Defence Estates Organisation is under illegal occupation or has unauthorised construction done on it. West Bengal has the maximum encroachment of defence land with 233 acres being under illegal possession, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 203 acres. The other states with notable defence area under illegal possession are Maharashtra (123 acres), Bihar (61 acres), Tamil Nadu (60 acres), Chhatisgarh (57 acres), Delhi (40 acres) and Andhra Pradesh (31 acres).

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim and Tripura have nil encroachment of defence land. Punjab and Haryana have 14 and 13 acres of defence land under encroachment, respectively.

The MoS Defence informed the Lok Sabha that 322 acres of defence land has been freed from encroachment in cantonments between April 2020 and December 2022. “Army authorities have informed that encroachments which were a serious threat have been removed under provisions of Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act 1971. No serious operational problems have occurred due to balance encroachments. Action as per law is initiated for removal of encroachments,” the minister said in his reply to a question on March 31.

The minister added that a change detection GIS tool has been developed which provides details of encroachments over a given span of period and that this tool ensures legal action is taken against all such encroachments. He also said that a methodology of evaluating ‘threat’ of encroachment of defence land has been devised and the government has allocated funds to the defence estates organisation for construction of boundary walls, fences, pillars etc around defence land pockets.

Uttar Pradesh has seen the maximum defence land being freed from encroachment at 326 acres followed by Haryana at 36 acres and Madhya Pradesh at 30 acres. There are 62 cantonments in the country located in 19 states and distributed among the five Army commands-Northern, Western, Central, South Western, Eastern and Southern. These cantonments are further categorised into four categories on the basis of population ranging between 25000 to more than 50,000.

Cantonment lands in the country are especially prone to encroachments because these came up during the British Raj and are now highly prized pieces of land in developed cities and in hill stations. In the past the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) came down heavily on the Directorate General of Defence Estates (DGDE) for rampant encroachment and illegal construction on defence land.

The CAG reports of the past many years have pointed to mismanagement of cantonment land by the respective cantonment boards who run them with the status of municipalities. The CAG has pointed towards accumulation of cases of encroachments and unauthorised construction which revealed lack of effective action on part of cantonment boards to safeguard government property.