Defence land records to be digitised in three years

Moreover, a set of new rules will be announced soon specifying the ground-rules for issuing a No Objection Certificates (NOCs) in case a piece of defence land is used for a non-military purpose.

“A few NOCs issued in the past by certain local authorities have earned us a bad name. This must be avoided,” Defence Minister A K Antony told the director-general of defence estate and cantonment board officials at a review meeting on Wednesday, referring to Sukhna and Adarsh controversies.

With 17.31 lakh acres of land under its possession, the defence ministry is India’s biggest land-holder. Approximately two lakh acres is inside the 62 cantonments, whereas the remaining 15.3 lakh acres is occupied by military stations, air force stations, naval bases, field firing ranges, camping sites and defence research laboratories.

A recent audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General  has found that unauthorised land use, violation of rules and disregard for land management practices are rampant in defence land management ostensibly because they are prime real estate.

Two circulars on the ceding of defence land and issue of NOCs to defence and adjoining lands would be issued later this week to streamline the procedures and plug loopholes, Shekhar Agarwal, special secretary in the Defence Ministry, said.

To streamline the defence land management, the ministry will survey the  entire defence land using modern technology, which would be followed with digitisation and indexing of defence land records.