Anusreeta Dutta
India’s shift to clean energy has long been heralded as one of the country’s most important development milestones. India is making significant investments in solar parks, wind farms, green hydrogen, and transmission infrastructure and aims to reach 500 GW of non-fossil fuel generation by 2030. India is largely viewed as the world’s best-performing country in renewable energy deployment, successfully balancing climate targets with its booming electricity demand. But behind this great achievement there is a problem that is becoming more and more obvious. Farmers in Gujarat’s Morbi region recently protested payments for transmission lines linked to renewable energy projects, showing that India’s clean energy revolution is about more than technology, finance, and climate policy. Equally important is to think about land, livelihoods, and government.
The protesters are not calling for an end to all renewable energy. The main concerns relate to compensation, property rights, and the long-term impacts of high-voltage transmission infrastructure on agricultural land. That’s a significant distinction. It means that the biggest obstacle to India’s green transition might not be resistance to clean energy per se, but a lack of institutions to manage the social fallout of this transition equitably. The protests in Morbi should be seen not as an isolated dispute about one company or one project, but as a warning of a broader policy challenge that India will face increasingly as it rolls out renewable infrastructure across the country.
The Invisible Backbone of Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is often spoken about in public discussions, like solar panels and wind turbines. But power generation is only part of the problem. Electricity generated in renewable energy parks must travel hundreds of kilometers of transmission lines to reach industry, businesses, and households. India’s flagship renewable projects, such as the Khavda Renewable Energy Park in Gujarat, which is set to be one of the world’s largest, are supported by vast networks of transmission towers, substations, and power lines. But without this infrastructure, there is no way to feed renewable electricity into the national grid. Ironically, it is the transmission infrastructure that increasingly faces local opposition, even as the solar parks themselves draw the public’s gaze. Transmission towers take up fairly small amounts of land, but they can restrict farm operations, reduce property values, interfere with irrigation, and create worries about what the land will be used for in the future. Farmers bear these long-term costs, often with little immediate benefit from the energy infrastructure that crosses their farms.
As India’s renewable capacity grows, such disputes are likely to become more common unless compensation and consultation systems evolve alongside the infrastructure.
Not an Energy Challenge – a Governance Challenge
India has made significant strides in deploying renewable energy through regulatory reforms, competitive tendering, and private investment. The governance structure for property acquisition, right of way compensation, and community participation has not evolved as fast. Negotiations are often held after projects are announced or construction has begun. Communities are left to react to decisions rather than being included in the decision-making process. Landowners often file compensation disputes on the grounds that official valuations are far below the current market prices or that the framework does not consider the long-term impact on agricultural productivity.
This leads to a cyclical pattern. Protests over delays. Protests lead to political intervention. The government announces new compensation packages for each project, but the institutional weaknesses remain to be addressed. Such a strategy might settle individual disputes in the short term but does little to build long-term confidence in renewable infrastructure development.
The Cost of Losing Public Trust
The country’s renewable energy targets mean big infrastructure development. Land is needed for solar parks, wind farms, battery storage facilities, interstate transmission lines, pumped hydro projects, and green hydrogen hubs. With land to build on becoming scarce, social acceptance will be as much a limiting factor as engineering capacity. International experience teaches important things. Renewable energy projects in a number of countries have met local opposition from communities that feel excluded from decisions or unfairly compensated. By contrast, projects that invested in open consultation, benefit-sharing schemes, and long-term community engagement faced fewer delays and attracted more public support. India’s move to renewable energy cannot be based largely on aspirational targets and investment announcements. Public legitimacy is becoming an important component of energy security.
This is not a problem for individual farmers to face alone. As renewable infrastructure extends into formerly undeveloped areas, pastoral communities, forest-dependent people, indigenous groups, and rural local administrations are all likely to become major stakeholders. Ignoring these voices increases the likelihood of unnecessary confrontations, which can hinder the implementation of the project and increase expenses. Development and justice have to go together. You do not want to make the argument of renewable energy vs. agriculture. India needs both these things. The rise in temperatures, extreme weather events, and unpredictable rainfall patterns associated with climate change are among the biggest long-term threats to Indian agriculture. But boosting renewables is vital to reducing emissions while enabling economic growth. But the urgency of climate action cannot be used as an excuse to ignore procedural fairness.
A genuinely sustainable energy transition must incorporate principles of energy justice that ensure equitable distribution of costs and benefits of infrastructure, meaningful consultation of affected communities, and accessible and credible grievance mechanisms. Without trust, development is more expensive, slower, and more politically difficult.
Working Towards a Better Framework
The recurring nature of land disputes indicates a need for structural restructuring on part of the state and not reactive policymaking. India should consider developing a national unified framework for compensation and right-of-way payments for renewable transmission infrastructure that takes into account market realities as well as the long-term impact on landowners. Independent land valuation methods, open public consultations before project approval, faster grievance redressal mechanisms, and benefit-sharing models that allow local communities to share the benefits of renewable development could all help prevent future conflicts.
It is also important to understand that consultation is not a procedural obstacle but an investment in the stability of the project. When communities understand the impact of projects on them and feel that their concerns are being heard, they are more likely to embrace infrastructure that serves the public interest.
India’s Green Transition: The Future
India has some of the world’s most ambitious sustainable energy goals. They are critical to meeting climate commitments but also to enhancing energy security, attracting investment, and establishing the country as a global hub for sustainable technology manufacturing. But the success of this transition will depend on more than just the number of gigawatts built or the amount of money invested. It will also be evaluated if India can build the public trust that is needed to sustain this transformation over time. The Morbi agitation is not only about the transmission and compensation towers. This is an early warning that land politics will be ever more central to clean energy politics. India’s renewable revolution needs to treat the communities hosting this infrastructure as partners in the country’s energy future, not as stakeholders to be compensated after decisions have been taken, for it to be sustainable. An ambitious and inclusive green transition will not only deliver cleaner electricity but also provide the social legitimacy to power India’s development for decades to come.
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About the author:
Anusreeta Dutta is a columnist and climate researcher with experience in political
research analysis, ESG research, and energy policy.