How new military bases could seed new cities and create jobs (Live Mint)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : Military establishment
Mains level : Requirement of the Military establishment

Context

• India can create over 30 million jobs in the short- and medium-term by creating 20 military bases in the next 15 years
• India can create over 30 million new jobs in the short- and medium-term by creating 20 new military bases over the next 15 years.
• The required run rate to avoid social turmoil is 20 million jobs per year, way higher than the current run rate of a million or two a year. New military bases can form the nucleus (or the catalyst) for new cities, providing high quality living, schooling and working conditions for the armed forces community.

Improving economic activity

• These in turn will create a growing spiral of economic activity that can create millions of jobs.
• There is a general impression that our armed forces have superior living conditions, with “palatial homes", golf clubs and similar luxuries.
• The reality is more prosaic, with housing shortages, buildings too old to be maintained properly, need for better schools and employment opportunities for spouses.
• While military modernization itself is on top of the policy agenda, the modernization of the places where our troops live, train and operate out of gets almost no attention.
• We need to raise living standards, provide much better infrastructure and modern amenities to the families of both officers and the rank and file.

Major significance

• Equivalent land 40-100km away from the city would be available at a fraction of the cost, allowing the surplus to be used for infrastructure development, housing and defence facilities.
• So shifting parts of old cantonments to new sites can, in a single move, address many policy challenges: create new cities, provide the armed forces with modern facilities and create mass employment without adding to the nation’s fiscal burden.
• To balance the interests of the Union and states, the latter could purchase land from the defence ministry in existing cities in the first transaction.
• The defence ministry could then purchase equivalent land, perhaps larger in size, outside the built-up areas of cities from the state government in the second transaction.
• State governments could develop the land acquired in the city centres for urban redevelopment, relieving congestion and building sustainable neighbourhoods.

Boosting employment

• Back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that for every new military base or cantonment, between 100,000 to 1 million jobs will be created in the construction and infrastructure sector in the short- and medium-term.
• Further, redevelopment of existing city centres will itself account for 200,000-500,000 new construction jobs in each location in the short-term.
• Additional high-value jobs will be created in these areas given the economic potential of city centres.
• Around 7.5 million new construction and infrastructure industry jobs can thus be created if India were to initiate five such projects.
• Over time, the military bases will germinate into new urban centres with populations of 1-5 million that can act as engines of economic and job growth for the future.
• Without doubt the challenges of doing something of this nature are many and complex.
• Cooperative federalism has to operate at a massive scale, the armed forces have to be persuaded to part with land that has been in their possession since before India’s independence, the environmental impact must be mitigated, agricultural land acquisition must be sorted out and finally, urban real estate mafias must be kept in check.

Conclusion

• The most important consideration is the opinion of the armed forces, from both the military preparedness and quality-of-life perspectives.
• The armed forces’ reluctance to part with land under their control is understandable, even if it is frustrating to many municipalities and state governments.
• This is so because negotiations for exchange of land take place in the absence of a broader vision.
• It is the articulation of a win-win-win proposition for all the stakeholders involved that is the secret sauce in this recipe.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of the following statements is/are correct about the Central Administration Tribunal (CAT)?
1. Appeals against the orders of the CAT can be made only in the Supreme Court and not in the High Courts.
2. Appointment of members is made by President on the recommendation of a committee chaired by a sitting judge of Supreme Court.
3. The CAT is bound by the procedure laid down in the Civil Procedure Code of 1908.

Select the correct answer using the code given below.
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 2 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Answer: C
Mains Questions:
Q.1) How new military bases could seed new cities and create jobs?