Conflicts across India as states create land banks for industry, investment

Up to 2.68 mn hectares of land have been set aside in land banks in the eight states

In June this year, about a hundred people from Nuagaon village near India’s east coast marched towards a wall that the Odisha government is building around a 1,700 hectare piece of land on the village’s periphery. The wall would mark the inclusion of the land–1,253 hectares of which is forest land and is under dispute–in the state government’s land bank, thereby restricting locals’ access to an area where they have traditionally harvested betel leaves, rice and fish.

Faced with heavy police deployment, the villagers turned back to consider a change of strategy. In 2011, they had successfully