Written by: Nainu Rohtaki
3 min readKasauliMar 7, 2024 07:10 AM IST
First published on: Mar 7, 2024 at 03:32 AM IST
The Centre on Tuesday issued a gazette notification to denotify civil areas of 10 cantonments (out of 58) in the country. These areas will now be merged with the state municipalities (local bodies) concerned. The process to remove civil areas from other cantonments, including six of Himachal Pradesh, is underway.
The 10 include Dehradun and Clement Town Cantonments in Uttarakhand; Fatehgarh, Babina, Shahjahanpur and Mathura Cantonments in UP; Deolali Cantonment in Maharashtra; Ramgarh Cantonment in Jharkhand; Ajmer and Nasirabad Cantonments in Rajasthan.
In the notification, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has given a time of eight weeks to raise objections, if any, in this regard.
The MoD notification to denotify civil areas from the control of the cantonment boards stated, “The central government, after consulting the state governments and cantonment boards, hereby declares its intention to exclude certain areas of the said cantonments and the merger of such areas with the state local bodies. Any objection by any inhabitant of a cantonment may be submitted to the central government through the General Officer Commanding in Chief within eight weeks from the publication of the notification.”
Talking to The Indian Express, Himachal Pradesh Cantonment Association general secretary Manmohan Sharma said, “A joint survey for the HP cantonments like Sabathu, Dagshai, Kasauli and Bakloh had already been done in February. The joint survey – by the state government and the cantonment board officials – for the Jutogh Cantonment is scheduled for March 7 (Thursday), and it was for this the process of excision of civil areas in HP cantonments has taken time.”
After the joint survey, the report is given by the state government to the MoD.
On July 24, 2023, the MoD had notified the state governments (58 cantonments in different states of the country) to consider merging civil areas with neighbouring state municipalities. Khas Yol Cantonment has already been denotified and its civil areas now fall under Municipal Corporation, Dharamshala.
It was Himachal Pradesh which had led the way with consent letters (giving consent to start the process of excision of civil areas in cantonments) for all its cantonments, but the process to remove its civil areas from the cantonment board is still underway in six of them, with the joint surveys for four out of five cantonments done in the last month under the chairmanship of the respective deputy commissioners.
Himachal Pradesh has altogether seven cantonments – Dalhousie, Sabathu, Dagshai, Kasauli, Bakloh, Jutogh, and Khas Yol. Barring Khas Yol, the civil areas of the other cantonments are yet to be denotified.
Himachal Pradesh has altogether seven cantonments – Dalhousie, Sabathu, Dagshai, Kasauli, Bakloh, Jutogh, and Khas Yol. Barring Khas Yol, the civil areas of the other cantonments are yet to be denotified. 
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