Ongoing land conflicts affecting lives, livelihoods of over 6.5 mn people

State govts are failing to realise that farmers, landowners are much more aware of the actual market value of their land and about the legal provisions related to consent and rehabilitation etc

Independent researcher Kumar Sambhav, who has co-founded Land Conflict Watch - the first and largest database of ongoing land conflicts in India - tells Aditi Phadnis that while India has enacted laws to protect the rights of marginalised communities, these are either not implemented, or violated and bypassed. Edited excerpts: 

You have just come out with a study on land conflicts in India. Tell us about its findings.

Land Conflict Watch undertook a 3-year intensive research on 703 ongoing land conflicts across India. Over 40 researchers, spread across the country, collected granular data on the different economic sectors involved, social factors at