12,326 acres defence land under encroachment: Antony

With more than 17 lakh acres land under them,the Defence forces are one of the largest owners of land in the country.

As per the state-wise data,3,080 acres land is under encroachment in Uttar Pradesh followed by 1,491 acres in Madhya Pradesh.

The Defence Minister said the Directorate General of Defence Estates (DGDE) has initiated a programme for computerisation of defence land registration.

“Two projects — one on digitisation of land records involving scanning,indexing and the other on the survey of land — have been sanctioned recently to be completed in a time bound manner,” he said.

In reply to another query,the Defence Ministry said it was considering a proposal to bring Short Service Commission (SSC) officers under ex-servicemen contributory health scheme to attract more youths to join the forces.