MoD calls meet after HP govt fails to send reply

Kullu: As the Himachal Pradesh govt has failed to send its reply to the ministry of defence (MoD), delaying the proposed excision of its six cantonments and leaving its residents extremely upset, the MoD has now called for a meeting to discuss the issue. In a letter written to state chief secretary Prabodh Saxena, MoD joint director Rajesh Kumar Sah has stated that since the ministry has not yet received Himachal government’s views on the proposed excision of cantonments, a meeting should be called to discuss the broad modalities. The MoD has fixed the meeting for Nov 29. The state govt in July this year had sought 15 days’ time from the MoD to send its feedback on the excision process. In a letter to the MoD, state urban development department additional director Jagan Thakur had said that the joint survey reports of the six cantonments have come, but it would take 15 days’ time to finalise the reply and then send it to the MoD.

However, even after over five months, the state government is still to send its reply and the feedback file continues to gather dust in the chief minister’s Office. In its reply to the MoD, the state government is also supposed to make its stance clear on the MoD’s new excision condition. Sparking off a controversy, the MoD in June this year had inserted a new clause in the excision modalities as per which the land ownership right will remain with the Union government even after the transfer of assets and liabilities from the army to the state government.“The new condition imposed by the MoD is unacceptable. Because it’s not in public interest. The whole idea of freeing civil areas of cantonments from army rule is to give them the land ownership rights and this clause defeats the whole purpose of the excision process,” said Manmohan Sharma, General Secretary, Himachal Pradesh Cantonment Association (HPCA), which is spearheading the campaign for freeing the civil areas from army-controlled ones in the state’s cantonments. Sharma said that the state government should make its position clear to the MoD.“We have given our feedback to the state government while making it clear that the MoD’s new clause is unacceptable. The residents of all the six cantonments are opposing the new clause and are also greatly upset over the delay in the excision process. The state government must make it clear to the MoD what it thinks of the transfer of assets in general and land ownership right in particular,” added Sharma. Union defence secretary Giridhar Aramane has already expressed concern over the delay by the Himachal Pradesh government by failing to send its feedback. In a meeting he held with the officials from the states having cantonment boards in June, the defence secretary had directed the Himachal government to send urgently its feedback on the excision process in the state. Along with Himachal Pradesh, the MoD has also called a meeting of 35 other cantonments of the country. Out of the total 61 cantonments in the country, the Union government had decided to start the excision process in 58 cantonments. And out of these 58 cantonments, 36 had been selected in the first phase of the excision. Separating civil and Army areas in the cantonments has been a long-pending demand of the residents due to a number of issues, primarily because of the fact that they neither have any ownership rights nor they are beneficiaries of the state-sponsored welfare schemes. 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.Last year on April 28, Khasyol Cantonment Board in Kangra district had become the first in the country to be de-notified. The civil area was excised from the cantonment and merged with the local panchayat body.MoD silence on new clauseThe ministry of defence has avoided mentioning the new land transfer clause in its correspondence to the states, prompting Himachal Pradesh Cantonment Association (HPCA) to question the ministry's silence. “It seems the MoD has been deliberately avoiding mentioning the new clause in all its correspondence to us and the state governments. We just want to know the present status of this clause. In a democratic set up, there should be transparency. Moreover, if the excision of cantonments has been initiated by the union government for the welfare of the people then why did the MoD come up with this anti-public clause?” said HPCA general Secretary Manmohan Sharma.
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