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The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pulled up the Western Command headquarters in Chandimandir for installing 13 mobile towers without the requisite approval from Ministry of Defence and causing a loss of Rs 4.33 crore on account of non-recovery of rent and premium. The CAG has pointed out the lapses in its latest report which was tabled in the Parliament in the ongoing monsoon session.
As per the CAG, the Ministry of Defence decided in September 2008 that the public sector and independent infrastructure providers, who have been granted licence by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to build, operate and maintain various services, such as unified access services, basic services and cellular mobile services etc, may be considered for allotment of defence land on leasehold basis to lay optical fibre cables and set up shared communication towers at military stations/cantonments. The lease conditions stipulated that the land be allotted at the commercial lease rent i.e. four times the residential rent, based on the current market rate of the area with one time premium at 10 times the annual rent.
Also, the competent authority to grant the lease would be the MoD or the authority to whom such powers may be delegated, not below the General Officer Commanding -in- Chief (GOC-in-C) of the Command and its equivalent in other services. The MoD, in April 2012, clarified it had not issued any order for delegation of these powers and the authority to grant leases of land to communication operators was with MoD only.
During the audit of Garrison Engineer at Chandimandir (May 2016) and Station Headquarters Chandimandir (July 2016), it was found that 13 mobile towers had been installed between March 2006 and June 2013 by private telephone companies at the military station without sanction of the competent authority i.e. MoD.
Further, though recoveries of electricity bills were being effected by the GE Chandimandir, no recovery towards rent/one time premium had been made for 13 mobile towers, thereby resulting into loss of rent of Rs 1.56 crore and one time premium of Rs 2.78 crore till July 2016, the CAG has said.
Western Command headquarters stated that the process of getting sanction from the MoD under the 2008 policy was a laborious one and a case taken up in 2008 for establishment of mobile towers at Chandimandir military station had still not seen the light of the day. Hence, a conscious decision was taken to provide temporary relief to troops purely as welfare measures. It was further stated that no agreement was concluded, except electricity charges being paid as per actual usage.
A similar case of sanction of mobile towers at Hisar military station in Haryana is already under probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in which the role of former GOC-in-C Western Command, Lt Gen KJ Singh, is being investigated. The inquiry pertains to some mobile towers which came up in the military station during his tenure as the GOC of the Army division based in Hisar.
