" The fight over land holding back India’s green energy revolution", 21 January 2025

in late 2022, Tata Power, one of the country’s largest energy producers, announced it would begin setting up hundreds of glinting photovoltaic panels stretching out across that sun-drenched patch of countryside in the state of Maharashtra.

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Many see the solar plant as a corporate land grab of a slice of state-owned territory that their families had been granted permission to cultivate over multiple generations.

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Taking note, Maharashtra’s forest department, which claims purview over the land, ordered action against the Tata project

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But this breakneck effort is triggering land disputes across the world’s most populous nation, highlighting the difficulty of building out capacity in fast-growing, crowded and power-hungry developing countries.

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India’s clean energy sector has also come under renewed focus after US prosecutors indicted infrastructure magnate Gautam Adan

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According to Indian research group Land Conflict Watch, at least 31 disputes involving green energy projects have affected nearly 44,000 people

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”In a recent study, the New Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water estimates that currently only 35 per cent of onshore wind and 41 per cent of solar real estate potential in India is located in areas without historical contest over land

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The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis estimates India’s net zero goal may require up to 75,000 square kilometres of land for solar energy alone

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Those hurdles are frustrating corporate India, particularly carbon-heavy industries. “It’s time-consuming,” says Neha Soni, general manager for business development at ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India,