More than 17 lakh acres held by 62 cantonments and the defence estates will soon be audited. Land records will also be digitised and indexed.
Announcing this at the first Performance Appraisal Conference of the Chief Executive Officers of the Cantonment Boards here on Wednesday, the Defence Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, said issuance of no objection certificates (NoCs) for defence land would be done strictly according to the laid down policy.
Observing that “a few NoCs issued in the past by certain local authorities have earned us a bad name,” Mr Antony said this must be avoided. He said all vacant pieces of defence land would be constantly monitored to avert encroachment.
The Defence Minister announced two important projects for managing defence estates.
“One is regarding the introduction of modern survey technology in the estates and completing of survey work of all defence land in phased manner, within a period of three years. The second is on digitisation and indexing of defence land records.”
He said the computerisation project to scan, index and microfilm all defence land-title related records has been cleared by his Ministry.
“This is an important project to make land-title related documents easily retrievable as also preserve them for future.”
The Defence Minister said cantonment boards need to keep pace with infrastructure development in municipal bodies in metros and big cities, adding that the cash-starved boards should “look for alternative sources of revenue generation.”
The Director-General of Defence Estates is the custodian of vast land holdings in cantonments and other defence estates, making it the largest land holder in the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Shekhar Agarwal, Special Secretary, Defence Ministry, said that two circulars on ceding of defence land and issue of NoC to defence and adjoining lands would be issued later this week.