Morbi Farmers Reject 200%-and-30% Compensation for Transmission Towers as Agri-PV and Grid Stability Enter the 500 GW Debate

The news

Morbi, Gujarat. Farmers in Morbi district are protesting against how they are compensated when high-voltage transmission lines cross their fields, The Indian Express reports. On Friday more than 9,000 farmers, some from other districts, held a dharna at the Morbi Collectorate. On September 17 police booked 21 farmers after effigies of the Prime Minister and Home Minister were burnt. The latest protest began after notices were served on September 23 to all landowners with towers or line corridors of the 765 kV Halvad Transmission Line or an 800 kV line on their land. The Halvad line is being built by Halvad Transmission Limited, a Special Purpose Vehicle (a company set up for one project) owned by Adani Energy Solutions. The 800 kV line is being built by Power Grid Corporation of India. The notices asked them to appear within two days before a Market Rate Committee (MRC) at the Collectorate and nominate a valuer, or the government would nominate one for them. Farmer leader Nehul Dhirajlal Amrutiya described the formula as “200% of the value of the area occupied by a tower base and 30% of that of the area under a RoW (Right of Way) corridor”, and said it does not cover farmers’ full losses. Farmers want the lines routed through the sparsely populated Little Rann of Kutch, or laid underground. Collector Swapnil Khare said 21 days would be given for valuation once valuers are nominated, but admitted the process was “crawling”: seven MRCs have been set up, 102 survey numbers valued and 44 farmers paid. Local MLA and Minister of State Kantilal Amrutiya said farmers would now get “three times as much” as earlier but ruled out changing the route. Farmer Vinod Aghara says a 765 kV tower and corridor erected in 2025 cover 10 of his 42 bighas, and that his land’s value fell “from Rs 55-60 lakh to less than half”. Work on the lines has stopped. In The Indian Express, Ashok Gulati and Subhodeep Basu of ICRIER argue for a different kind of farmer stake in the energy transition. India’s solar capacity rose from 2.82 GW before 2014 to 168.04 GW by August 2026, third after China and the U.S. About 74% is utility-scale. PM Surya Ghar gives ₹78,000 central subsidy for a 3 kW rooftop system and has an outlay of ₹75,021 crore, but Component A of PM-KUSUM, which lets farmers set up plants of up to 2 MW, has no capital subsidy. They propose banning ground-mounted solar on farmland and promoting agri-photovoltaics (agri-PV), in which panels are mounted about 11 feet high so crops can grow below. An ICRIER-backed 600 kW plant in Rajasthan, financed by a ₹1.4 crore State Bank of India loan, a ₹60 lakh farmer contribution and ₹35 lakh of Kotak Mahindra Bank CSR support, raised income from about ₹40,000 an acre from wheat and bajra to nearly ₹4 lakh an acre. Citing the CAG’s estimate of ₹8.5 per kWh supply cost against ₹1 realised from farmers, they propose a ₹4.5 feed-in tariff. Separately, The Economic Times reports that a FICCI–Nangia report, ‘Grid Stability in India’, says the 500 GW non-fossil target for 2030 needs matching grid-stability milestones. It recommends notified minimums for grid inertia, rate of change of frequency and system strength, and a single instrument for battery storage above 50 MW. The syllabus link is GS3 on land, energy infrastructure and inclusive growth.

Static syllabus linkage

1. Transmission lines use right of way, not land acquisition. Section 164 of the Electricity Act, 2003 allows the appropriate government to confer on a transmission licensee the powers that the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 gave to telegraph authorities. Under Section 10 of the Telegraph Act, a line or post can be placed on any land without acquiring it, but the owner does not lose title and must be paid full compensation for damage. Section 16 provides for disputes over compensation to be decided by the District Magistrate. Because title does not pass, the owner keeps the land but with restrictions under and near the line, and this is why compensation is paid as a percentage of land value rather than as a purchase price.
2. The Centre’s 2024 guidelines set compensation for tower base and corridor. The Ministry of Power issued guidelines in 2024 recommending compensation of 200% of the land value for the area under the tower base and 30% of the land value for the right-of-way corridor, with land value based on the circle rate or market rate. States may adopt these or higher rates. The figures quoted by the Morbi farmers match this formula. Earlier guidelines of 2015 provided lower percentages, which is why the local MLA says farmers will get about three times as much as before.
3. PM-KUSUM has three components aimed at farm solar. The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan, launched in 2019 by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has three components. Component A supports decentralised grid-connected solar plants of up to 2 MW on farmers’ land, with the power bought by discoms. Component B supports standalone solar pumps. Component C supports solarisation of existing grid-connected pumps, including feeder-level solarisation. Components B and C carry central financial assistance, while Component A offers a procurement-based incentive to discoms rather than a capital subsidy to farmers.
4. The 500 GW goal and grid inertia. At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 India announced a target of 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, and its updated Nationally Determined Contribution of 2022 commits to about 50% of cumulative installed capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030. Green Energy Corridors are the transmission projects built to carry renewable power from resource-rich States. Grid inertia is the stored kinetic energy in the rotating turbines of conventional generators, which slows changes in frequency after a disturbance. Solar panels and batteries connect through inverters and provide no natural inertia, so a grid with more renewables needs storage, grid-forming inverters and rules on the rate of change of frequency.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Land for infrastructure is a steady GS3 theme. UPSC has asked about land acquisition, the LARR Act, 2013 and the conflict between infrastructure and livelihoods. Right-of-way compensation for transmission lines is a less familiar but important variant, because no land is acquired and so the LARR Act’s protections do not apply.
2. Renewable targets and their constraints appear in both prelims and mains. Questions have covered India’s NDC, the International Solar Alliance, PM-KUSUM and rooftop solar. The grid-integration problem, including storage and inertia, is the next step and suits a Mains question on the challenges of the energy transition.
3. Farmers’ income and agri-diversification link GS3 agriculture to energy. Doubling farmers’ income, power subsidies and discom finances are recurring topics. Agri-PV joins them in a single example of land producing food and energy together.

Analysis

1. The right-of-way model is fast for the state but costly for the farmer. Because transmission lines do not acquire land, the project avoids the social impact assessment, consent and resettlement provisions of the LARR Act, 2013. The farmer keeps the title, but that title may now be much less valuable. Mr. Aghara’s claim that his land value halved shows the cost the formula misses: land under a 765 kV line is hard to sell, mortgage or develop. The 2024 guidelines raised compensation considerably, but a percentage of circle rate may still be well below the loss in market value. That is why farmers are rejecting the process, not just the number.
2. The protest is also about process: two days’ notice and a company’s timetable. Farmers were given two days to appear before an MRC, including owners living abroad. The Collector says valuation will take 21 days once valuers are nominated, but the notice itself reads as coercion. Farmers also ask why the state is acting for a private company, since the Halvad line is owned by an Adani SPV. A transmission line serves a public purpose, but when the state is seen as the company’s agent, it loses trust. A transparent schedule, a single-window grievance process and published valuations would reduce the conflict.
3. Rerouting through the Little Rann is not a simple answer. The farmers’ proposal to route lines through the Little Rann of Kutch sounds attractive because it is sparsely populated. But the Little Rann holds the Wild Ass Sanctuary and saline wetlands, so a transmission corridor there raises environmental objections of its own. Longer routes also raise costs and losses. Undergrounding extra-high-voltage lines is far more expensive than overhead lines. The honest trade-off is between higher compensation for farmers and higher project cost, which will eventually be recovered through tariffs from consumers.
4. Agri-PV turns farmers from land-givers into producers of power. Gulati and Basu’s proposal changes the relationship: instead of giving land to someone else’s project for compensation, the farmer earns from power sales while still growing crops. The ICRIER pilot’s tenfold income increase is striking, but it is one plant with CSR support. Scaling it needs finance at priority-sector rates, discoms that pay on time, and crops that tolerate shade. The proposal to ban ground-mounted solar on farmland goes too far, because much farmland in arid areas is marginal and its owners may prefer leasing it. Agri-PV should be encouraged, not made the only option.
5. Capacity without grid stability will produce curtailment, not clean power. The FICCI–Nangia report makes a point that the protest also shows: generation targets mean little without transmission and system rules. A grid with more inverter-based power needs defined standards for inertia and frequency response, and storage. If transmission lines stall in Morbi and stability rules lag, renewable plants will be curtailed and the 500 GW figure will overstate clean electricity delivered. The energy transition therefore depends on land and grid governance as much as on panel prices.

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