Cheaper Govt Land Shifts Solar Sector to Real Estate Game in Rajasthan

Jaipur: After mobilizing thousands of farmers and cattle, sheep, and goat grazers in a mass protest in Jaisalmer in September, conservationist Sumer Singh Bhati and communities across Western Rajasthan are still awaiting a government decision to protect 8,000 acres of pasture and oran land (sacred, community-conserved groves).

The agitation was suspended in October after the state government assured them of legal safeguards, but two months on, no order has been issued on the matter. “We will wait another month. If nothing happens, we will restart the agitation,” Bhati told TOI.

Keeping this key decision in limbo has not prevented the state from fast-tracking the allotment of cheaper government land to private companies, and undermining rates for local landowners in the process. Bhati said government land should be used for the common good or strategic purposes. “If public land was only for commercial use, we would have no parks or open spaces, only buildings. In the desert, its purpose is to protect the ecosystem and support people, livestock, and the environment,” he said.

Pointing out that cheaper government land was distorting land prices, he said, “If local people want to sell, they do not get a good price because the government is providing cheaper land elsewhere to private companies.”

Industry stakeholders claim the government's land-driven, generation-centric policy has turned the solar energy sector into a real estate game, with almost no downstream job creation, economic activities, innovations, or demand for skilled people. “So far, Rajasthan has largely stayed out of the race to build a solar ecosystem that captures manufacturing, innovation, jobs, and higher tax revenues. If this continues, the state risks locking itself into a low-value role, supplying only land, while other states build large solar industrial hubs,” said DD Agarwal, director of Samta Power, an NGO in the power sector.

Rajasthan leads the country in installed solar generation capacity, which is at the lowest end of the value chain. That means once projects are commissioned, they create few permanent jobs and limited local economic activity. A senior executive from a solar manufacturing firm said the state has missed a clear industrial logic. “Rajasthan is excellent for quick solar parks, but manufacturing needs a different ecosystem, one based on capital subsidies, shared testing facilities, and policy certainty. States like MP are chasing the full value chain and are getting success,” he said.