How Much Land do India's Defence Forces own? Three-year Survey Gets the Answer

How much land do India’s Defence Forces own? In a first in 75 years, a three-year extensive digital survey, aided by drones and satellites and GPS, is giving us an accurate answer.

The Directorate General of Defence Estates has recorded 17.99 lakh acres as belonging to the Ministry of Defence. Of these, 17.78 lakh acres have been mapped in the ongoing survey. Interestingly, only 1.61 lakh acres of land is located inside the 62 notified cantonments. The remaining (16.38 lakh acres) is spread across 4900 pockets across India, including in inhospitable terrains. Land outside cantonments house various defence establishments, field firing ranges and training areas.

The biggest landholder?

The Government of India is the largest landholder in the country and owns land nine times the size of Delhi. Within the government, the Ministry of Railways has the largest amount of real estate followed by the Ministry of Defence.

The need for the survey

A clear demarcation and boundary survey of defence lands and fixing of the boundaries is necessary for its protection and safeguarding of the title of the MOD.

Plus, it goes a long way in updation of land records, maps and helps in preventing encroachment.

This mammoth exercise of surveying India’s Defence land of nearly 18 lakh acres so far rested on a time-consuming, manual effort. In keeping with the Spirit of Digital India, it was decided to leverage emerging technologies to get the job done quickly and accurately.

Aiding the process were the revenue departments of various state governments. This partnership is expected to reduce boundary and legal disputes among stakeholders.

How was the survey conducted?

Modern survey technologies like Electronic Total Station (ETS) and Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) were used in the survey. To speed up the process, drone imagery and Satellite imagery-based survey were leveraged for reliable, robust and time-bound outcomes.

For the first time, a drone imagery-based survey technology was used in Rajasthan. The area spread over lakhs of acres was surveyed with the help of Surveyor General of India in a matter of weeks, which earlier used to take years.

Besides this, Satellite Imagery-based survey was done for the first time for many defence land pockets, especially for larger pockets measuring lakhs of acres.

3D Modelling techniques for better visualisation of defence land in hilly area have also been introduced by utilising Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in association with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

Can tech tackle encroachments?

As a part of the survey, a project for real-time change detection system for encroachments has been initiated. A pilot test has been carried out on satellite imageries of defence land pockets procured from the National Remote Sensing Centre in Hyderabad.

Geo-referenced and digitised shape files are made available to enable quick decision-making by officials of DGDE & MoD.

How long will it take?

The survey, the largest such exercise undertaken in India began in October 2018. Of the 17.99 lakh acres, 17.78 lakh acres was surveyed till December 31, 2021, of which 8.90 lakh acres was surveyed during last three months. The entire exercise should be over soon.

The Defence Ministry in a press statement said: “It is a remarkable achievement since, for the first time after Independence, entire defence land has been surveyed by using latest survey technology.”

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