Ten army cantonments to be handed over to civil authorities

New Delhi: The Indian Army is set to give away ten cantonments to the civilian authorities as three army commands are in the process of completing the paperworks in accordance with a policy decision taken by the Narendra Modi government.

The cantonments that will be merged with urban local bodies are Dehradun, Deolali, Nasirabad, Babina, Ajmer, Ramgarh, Mathura, Shahjahanpur, Clement Town and Fatehgarh.

“The process of excision of cantonment areas began with draft notifications that the Ministry of Defence issued in March,” army sources said here, noting that a response time of eight weeks were given in the notifications.

Indian Army’s Central Command, South Western Command and Southern Command are in the process of completing the hand over exercise in coordination with Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh governments.

The defence ministry plans to abolish 62 cantonments around the country dubbing them “archaic colonial legacy”. The military areas within a cantonment will be converted into a Military Station whereas civil areas will be handed over to the local municipal authorities.

The excision of civil areas from the ten cantonments comes a year after Yol cantonment in Himachal Pradesh – headquarters of 9 Corps - was handed over to civil authorities. No decision was taken on Secunderabad so far, sources said.

The government has framed the guidelines for excision of civil areas and their merger with state municipalities. According to these guidelines the proprietary rights over all assets meant for providing civic amenities and municipal services in the excised area shall be transferred to the state government or municipalities free of cost.

The assets and liabilities of the cantonment boards shall also be transferred to the municipality.

With military stations and cantonments being the traditional green lungs and carbon sinks in cities, the army has also launched a campaign to make all the 306 military stations free from waste land-fill over the next five years.

The cantonments came up during the British era and were exclusive areas where service personnel and their families resided. Over the years, cities have expanded and a large number of civilians now reside in close proximity to the cantonments, often giving rise to friction on issues like road access.

At the time of independence, there were 56 cantonments and six were added post 1947, the last being Ajmer in 1962. The 62 cantonments (Yol included) are spread over an area of 1.61 lakh acres.

The Defence Ministry last year informed the Parliament that to bring uniformity in municipal laws governing civil areas of cantonments and adjoining state municipal areas, it has been decided to consider excision of civil areas of certain cantonments and merge them with neighbouring municipalities. The modalities for the excision have been shared with the states.