By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian government is taking “urgent steps” to hold elections “very soon” to the 62 cantonment boards across the country, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said Wednesday.
Addressing a meeting of the defence ministry’s parliamentary consultative committee here, Antony said the democratisation process of the cantonments had been finally achieved with the Cantonments Act, 2006, which came into force on Dec 18 of that year. The act was amended after a gap of 82 long years.
The 62 cantonments across the country are spread over almost 200,000 acres and include civil area of nearly 30,000 acres. The civil area has been specifically listed for democratisation under Section 46 of the Cantonments Act.
The new act establishes parity between the elected and non-elected members of the cantonment boards.
According to Antony, the Cantonment Electoral Rules, 2007 have already been notified to demarcate wards within the cantonments and to reserve seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Taking part in the discussions, Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said that over the years, “due to better land management, cantonments have become valuable real estate” and added: “The efforts of the government are not only directed to fully safeguard this valuable asset of the nation, but also to make optimal use of land.”
“We have initiated computerisation of land records of cantonments to achieve this purpose,” he stated.
Members of parliament who took part in the discussion called for effective measures to prevent encroachment on defence land.
Many of them were of the view that civic amenities and other welfare measures taken by the state governments should also be implemented for the civilian population living in cantonment areas.
The members of parliament who attended Wednesday’s meeting included Naveen Jindal, M.A. Kharabela Swain, Jayaben B. Thakkar, Samik Lahiri, Sanjay Dhotre, Shankhlal Majhi, Braja Kishore Tripathy, and Madhu Goud Yaskhi from the Lok Sabha, and Syed Azees Pasha and Dharam Pal Sabharwal from the Rajya Sabha.
India’s first cantonment was established at Barrackpore in 1765.