Cantt area residents see no hope from excising exercise

Residents of six cantonment towns of Himachal awaiting the exclusion of civilian areas from the British era defence entities have been left high and dry as the Union Ministry of Defence (MoD) has put a rider of seeking its prior permission for construction activities on land held on the old grant terms or lease even after its merger with the state municipalities.

The six cantonments of Kasauli, Dagshai, Subathu, Jutog, Dalhousie and Bakloh had in coordination with the state government prepared elaborate proposals based on the modalities notified by the MoD in 2022. However, Joint Secretary (Lands and Works) Rakesh Mittal had on June 26, 2024, made new guidelines known to the state government which stated that “wherever the Central Government holds title rights over land, the same shall be retained by it. Subject to this condition, the entire civilian area shall be handed over to the state municipality where local municipal laws shall be applicable.”

“While municipal laws will be applicable on such merged land, the clause of seeking prior permission defeats the very purpose of carrying out an elaborate excising exercise that started in 2022,” says Manmohan Sharma, general secretary, HP Cantonments Association.

Sharma rues that these guiding principles will have an overriding effect on the broad modalities announced by the MoD in 2022 for the excising exercise. The MoD has also made it clear that the state government should not use the opportunity to seek additional land on the pretext of future expansion of civic amenities for the civilians.

“Since permission for need-based infrastructure expansion is provided in cantonments on a regular basis, the same will continue,” defence officials had clarified at a meeting held in June. This further thwarted the state government’s attempt to seek additional area for future development.

As per Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of removing the symbols of colonial legacy, an exercise to exclude civilian areas from cantonments was initiated. The armed forces were supposed to retain residual areas in the cantonments and use them as military stations.

These towns, which house a sizable civilian population, continue to be governed by the Army and Defence Estate Organisations as part of the British colonial legacy. The MoD has called a key meeting on November 29 to proceed further on the issue, hence the residents are keenly awaiting the stand the state government will adopt.

Growth in the cantonment towns has been stunted due to stifling defence norms and residents were deprived of the benefits of various state and Central government schemes. Among 62 cantonment towns across the nation where the excising exercise was underway, the growth rate had increased by a mere 1.62 per cent in a decade. Kasauli had registered the lowest growth rate of 13.79 per cent among the six cantonments in the state as per the 2011 Census.