Audit Reports
Defence
Report No. 35 of 2010 - Performance Audit of Defence Estates Management
Overview
The Ministry of Defence is the biggest landholder in the Government with a holding of 17.31 lakh acres of land. Of this, approximately 2 lakh acres are inside the 62 Cantonments located in various parts of the country. Outside these Cantonments, 15.3 lakh acres of Defence land are occupied by Military Stations, Air Force Stations, Naval Bases, Defence Research and Development Organisation labs, firing ranges, camping grounds, etc. Among the three Services, Army occupies almost 80 per cent of the land.
At the time when most of these Cantonments and military stations were planned, these were normally at the outskirts of the town, sometimes far away from the city. With the growing urbanization and consequent pressure on the land, in most of the cities at present, these areas have now become part of the city. In many cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Ambala, etc. the Cantonment and station areas are almost in the heart of the city. Much of the Defence land both inside and outside Cantonments is now prime real estate.
The norms of requirement of land for different Defence establishments were laid down in the Handbook of Cantonment Planning, 1947. The Ministry in 1972 imposed a 33 per cent cut in these norms as an ad hoc and interim measure for all new stations. Subsequently in 1991, it laid down the new norms for Key Location Plans which amounted to 41.8 per cent cut on the land requirement norms of 1947. These calculations were however to exclude the land acquired and constructed upon prior to 1972. The new norms were applicable in case of assessment of land requirement for a new station as also in assessing land requirements of existing stations whenever additional land was required. The Ministry's order of 1991 incorporating reduction in the land requirement norms addressed only the new stations and did not address the existing stations.By applying the Ministry's norms of 1991 to 39 existing stations, Audit found that the existing stations held excess land measuring 81,814.82 acres.