The article highlights Naresh Yadav, then pradhan of Sorkha village, as a leading voice in the 2011 Noida farmers’ movement that demanded promised developed plots and regularization of abadi land for villages whose agricultural land enabled urban expansion.

Contemporary reporting recorded protests by farmers from seven villages and subsequent High Court-directed increases in compensation and developed-plot allotments from 5 percent to 10 percent.

It notes that the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code (Amendment) Act, 2026, streamlines non-agricultural land-use declarations by linking them to development approvals, but does not itself resolve historical disputes over acquisition, compensation, or village land rights.

From Sorkha’s farmers’ movement to the changing legal framework for land use, Naresh Yadav’s early advocacy deserves recognition in Noida’s development story.

When debates over land acquisition and urban development return to Noida, it is worth remembering the people who raised these questions long before they became central to the region’s policy discourse. Among them is Naresh Yadav, then the pradhan of Sorkha village, who emerged as a prominent voice in the farmers’ movement of 2011. His demand was straightforward: farmers whose land had enabled Noida’s urban expansion should not be excluded from the benefits of that development.

Today, as Uttar Pradesh changes its legal framework governing land-use conversion, that demand for a fairer relationship between urban development and land rights has renewed relevance. Yadav’s contribution deserves recognition, not as a claim that he alone brought about subsequent reforms, but as an example of grassroots advocacy that placed farmers’ concerns firmly on the public record.

The 2011 movement: A demand for participation in development

In 2011, Noida was witnessing rapid real-estate development, while disputes over land acquisition, compensation and the allotment of developed plots had become a source of conflict between farmers and the authorities. Residents of Sorkha and neighbouring villages argued that their agricultural land had been acquired for development without adequately resolving their rehabilitation and compensation claims.

Naresh Yadav was among the leaders who brought these grievances into the public domain. A report published by The Indian........

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