<p>Identifying Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) encroached land and securing it back will be one of the major targets that Major General K S Venugopal is hoping to achieve. Venugopal assumed the office as the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Karnataka and Kerala Sub Area, on Friday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>According to Major General A K Pradhan, the outgoing GOC, about eight cases of encroachment have been identified in Bangalore alone. <br /><br />Venugopal, who was in-charge of operations in the Southern Command said: “Generally, all the state governments are proactive when it comes to encroachment. If it pertains to them, they have been keen on admitting and allotting suitable, alternative land.” <br />He, however, said that evicting individuals from the encroached land is difficult. <br /><br />Pointing out that the Centre and the MoD are more serious about the problem of encroachments, Venugopal said: “We conduct joint surveys in all the stations as the government is keen on identifying the defence land.”<br /><br />He said that the problem generally occur in the metros where the demand for land and the prices shoot upwards all the time. <br /><br />Adding to this, Pradhan said: “...In fact, we own about 5,000 acre of land in Bellary, not an inch has been encroached upon. We actually hold a little land more than we are supposed to.”<br /><br />Other issues that are on priority list for Venugopal are welfare of ex-servicemen, for which he said he will continue the dialogues initiated by Pradhan with both, the Karnataka and the Kerala governments and providing accommodate to all serving officers. <br />“In the next two-three years all serving personnel in the sub area will have accommodation of over 1.20 lakh dwelling units. They are under various stages of ,” he said.<br /><br />He also revealed that Defence Minister A K Antony has cleared a proposal that envisages repair and maintenance of all the defence buildings at a cost of Rs 2,500 crore and exuded confidence that a budgetary allocation will be coming their way. <br /><br />He also said that improving civil-military relationship is also on the agenda.</p>
<p>Identifying Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) encroached land and securing it back will be one of the major targets that Major General K S Venugopal is hoping to achieve. Venugopal assumed the office as the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Karnataka and Kerala Sub Area, on Friday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>According to Major General A K Pradhan, the outgoing GOC, about eight cases of encroachment have been identified in Bangalore alone. <br /><br />Venugopal, who was in-charge of operations in the Southern Command said: “Generally, all the state governments are proactive when it comes to encroachment. If it pertains to them, they have been keen on admitting and allotting suitable, alternative land.” <br />He, however, said that evicting individuals from the encroached land is difficult. <br /><br />Pointing out that the Centre and the MoD are more serious about the problem of encroachments, Venugopal said: “We conduct joint surveys in all the stations as the government is keen on identifying the defence land.”<br /><br />He said that the problem generally occur in the metros where the demand for land and the prices shoot upwards all the time. <br /><br />Adding to this, Pradhan said: “...In fact, we own about 5,000 acre of land in Bellary, not an inch has been encroached upon. We actually hold a little land more than we are supposed to.”<br /><br />Other issues that are on priority list for Venugopal are welfare of ex-servicemen, for which he said he will continue the dialogues initiated by Pradhan with both, the Karnataka and the Kerala governments and providing accommodate to all serving officers. <br />“In the next two-three years all serving personnel in the sub area will have accommodation of over 1.20 lakh dwelling units. They are under various stages of ,” he said.<br /><br />He also revealed that Defence Minister A K Antony has cleared a proposal that envisages repair and maintenance of all the defence buildings at a cost of Rs 2,500 crore and exuded confidence that a budgetary allocation will be coming their way. <br /><br />He also said that improving civil-military relationship is also on the agenda.</p>
