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3 September 2017

Loot of the defence land bank

Sandeep Unnithan

Defence land is being plundered across the country, sometimes by armymen and sometimed by other parties.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has recommended disbanding of the scam-ridden Directorate General of Defence Estates (DGDE) that manages 17 lakh acres of defence land worth Rs 20 lakh crore. This unprecedented suggestion from the Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) is being considered by Defence Minister A.K. Antony who has ordered a clean-up of the tainted department. It comes in the wake of the Adarsh Housing Society scam where defence land was illegally transferred allegedly with the connivance of defence estates and army officials.

The MoD is the owner of the country's largest land bank. Its 17 lakh acres are twice the size of a state like Goa. A first-of-its kind internal audit of the DGDE carried out by CGDA, a copy of which has been accessed by INDIA TODAY, says this land bank is being systematically looted by neglect and the absence of an electronic database.

In its scathing indictment, the report holds the DGDE of managerial failure in all of its four major functions-audit, accounting and acquisition of land, and financial management. It recommends distributing its services among the user services and abolishing Defence Estate Officers or representatives of the DGDE. It suggests the department's functions be taken over by the land directorates of the service headquarters which administer defence land. The internal audit holds the DGDE-the only dedicated ministerial department for land management-guilty of misdeeds and even recommends prosecution of officials for causing loss to the exchequer and delaying implementation of court decrees. It solely blames the organisation for piling up 13,000 land dispute-related court cases which could cost the government Rs 5,000 crore to settle. Delays in implementing court orders is leading to interest payments running into several hundred crores. The audit makes 27 major suggestions, including setting up of a new centralised agency of the defence accounts department to provide the financial services and land audit to cover the defence ministry.

This may be one reason the notoriously opaque dgde attempted to sabotage the report by hiding facts, "refusing to provide complete information and even withholding information," as the report says.

Defence land is held within a triumvirate: the defence ministry owns the land, the armed forces use it and the DGDE manages it. The weakest link is the department that operates out of its swanky headquarters on a sprawling five-acre plot of prime land near Delhi's domestic airport. The ministry spends Rs 200 crore annually on this department of 1,251 personnel to manage the vast holdings of military land. Yet the state of land records within the organisation, set up by the British in 1924, is appalling. Priceless records that are the only proof of the state's ownership are maintained manually. The highest risk to the land bank, the audit warns, comes from the lack of an electronic database. It leaves defence land highly vulnerable to encroachments by the land mafia operating in towns and rural areas. While the A1 land that is in the active occupation of the military forces is safe from occupation, it is the ones outside the stations categorised 'A2, B1, B2' that are vulnerable to encroachments. Antony recently told Parliament that 11,000 acres of defence land were being illegally occupied all over India.

We are giving more attention to defence estates. A new DG has joined and I told him that his first task is to clean up the organisation.

- A.K. Antony, Defence Minister

The manual registers leave the field open for manipulations and surreptitious land transfers, say ministry officials. Six of the original members of the Adarsh Society were senior defence estate officials. The Adarsh scam is, however, only the tip of the iceberg because the ambiguous nature of land holdings across the country leaves it open to pillage. The vulnerability of defence land has also raised concerns of the parliamentary standing committee on defence which is preparing a report. "Valuable national property is being encroached. We have suggested an independent regulator be immediately appointed to administer defence lands," says Satpal Maharaj, chairman of the standing committee.

In the absence of a comprehensive electronic database of defence land within the country and no internal audit of land usage, the MoD continues to acquire more land even as it neglects the revenue-earning potential. An estimated 33 per cent of this surplus land would be worth approximately Rs 7 lakh crore. "It is, however, not generating revenue worth even 0.001 per cent of current asset value," the report notes. While the economic boom enables even local municipalities to generate financial surpluses to meet their local requirements, the DGDE itself lives a bizarre hand-to-mouth existence.

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