New ground realities in land laws

Relaxation of rules to forest and coastal regulation laws enables the government to significantly expand the scope of corporate investment in these hitherto restricted zones

Over the past two months, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has proposed two substantial changes that could give investments and infrastructure development in India a big fillip. These changes could also unleash a fresh set of environmental and social challenges. The first change came in the form of a draft forest policy in March. Then, in April, the government proposed a revision of the environmental safety norms that protect the coasts.

Put together, the two sets of changes amount to a transformation in land-use policy for two classes of lands — India’s 7,000 km shoreline and 700,000 square km