Speaker: Dr. Rohan Ravindra Gudibande, Assistant Professor of Economics, SIAS, Krea University
Date & Time: 14th August 2025 (Thursday) from 4:15 pm to 5:15 pm
Venue: Mini-Auditorium (2nd Floor, New Academic block)
Title of the paper: “Land Conflict and Road Infrastructure – Evidence from India”
About the Speaker: See the link https://sites.google.com/site/rohanravindragudibande
Abstract of the paper: What impact does large scale infrastructure have on the incidence of land acquisition conflict? The question has vital implications for public finance and policy discourse in developing countries who may require major resource allocation (often contested) for such infrastructure in light of perceived long term economic gains. The paper answers this question in the context of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway project implemented and largely completed in India at the start of the 21st century. Employing a long difference framework and using novel matched data of land acquisition conflicts with constructed GQ highway stretches, we show a significant increase in land acquisition conflict in districts that lie within 10 km of a GQ stretch between 1994 – 2010. These findings hold for a straight line instrument variable framework. The effect weakens statistically for districts after 10 km and beyond. We conduct a placebo test on incomplete upgrades for a similarly expansive highway project, NS-EW, during the same period and find no significant effects. We also check if such a relationship exists for an expansive but more localized rural road building during the same period like the PMGSY. We do not find evidence of land acquisition conflicts increasing in close proximity less than 10 km.
