KULLU: A new clause that allows the Army to retain control of land even after the excision of civil areas from cantonment boards has sparked off a fresh controversy with cantonment residents threatening to launch a fresh agitation in Himachal Pradesh.
As per the new clause — added recently by the Union ministry of defence (MoD) into the modalities of transferring assets from cantonment boards to state municipal bodies — the Army will continue to be the owner of all the land on which private houses have been built.
The MoD move is likely to affect lakhs of residents, who have built houses in the cantonments.
“This defeats the whole purpose. The entire struggle of cantonment residents has been about getting free from the Army rule. If this clause is implemented, it would mean that the Army will continue to be the owner of the land on which thousands of houses exist in the cantonments even after the excision. Nothing would change for the residents,” secretary of Himachal Pradesh Cantonment Welfare Organisation (HPCWO) Manmohan Sharma said.
Sharma said that earlier it was agreed that all the land of civil areas would be transferred to the state govt along with the assets.
“As per the earlier modality, the state govt was to be the new owner of land as well as assets after the excision. In this scenario, the residents would have had an opportunity to buy the land from the state govt. But if the Army retains control over the land, residents would have no hope of possessing ownership rights of land,” Sharma said.
“This is not acceptable at all. We will move the Prime Minister’s Office and residents may even take recourse to agitation again,” Sharma said.
As per the transfer modalities, the Army will lose control over the land on which civic amenities exist and the state govt will be the new owner after the excision process gets over.
Also, all vacant land in cantonments will continue to be in the hands of the Army.
There are six cantonment boards in Himachal Pradesh — Kasauli, Dagshai and Sabathu in Solan district; Jutogh in Shimla district and Bakloh and Dalhousie in Chamba district.
Residents of these cantonments have been demanding for years removal of Army control over civil areas due to multiple issues including lack of development, strict architectural controls, additional taxes, lack of property rights, and business losses etc.
At present, the Army has all the land rights and the residents who have built houses in the cantonments don’t have any property rights — a fact that deprives residents of many welfare schemes of the govt.
Last year on April 28, Khasyol Cantonment Board in Kangra district became the first in the country to be de-notified.
The civil area was excised from the cantonment and merged with the local panchayat body.
The process for the excision of the rest of the cantonments in Himachal Pradesh is presently underway and last month Union defence secretary Giridhar Aramane had expressed concern over the delay by Himachal Pradesh govt in submitting reports on the proposed transfer of assets from cantonment boards to the respective municipal bodies.
There are a total 62 cantonments in the country, notified under the Cantonment Act of 1924.
