Central Govt intends to denotify civilian areas in 10 cantonments

New Delhi, March 7

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued a notification, listing out what all areas in 10 cantonments it intends to exclude from cantonments and merge with local municipalities.

The ministry has allowed residents of these areas to file objections, if any, to the declaration within eight weeks. Once the objections are received and examined, the MoD will denotify these areas from governance under the Cantonment Act.

The respective state governments have been consulted before drawing up the areas. Military areas within the cantonment will be converted into a military station and civilian areas have been excluded to be merged with the local municipality. Cantonment Board employees and assets will be taken over by the municipality.

The 10 cantonments include Dehradun and Clement Town in Uttarakhand; Fatehgarh, Babina, Shahjahanpur and Mathura in UP; Deolali in Maharashtra; Ramgarh in Jharkhand; Ajmer and Nasirabad cantonments in Rajasthan.

Last year in April, the MoD had carried out the exercise in Khas Yol in Dharmasala, which was first among the cantonments to see exclusion of civilian areas.