Six hundred and thirty-eight hectares of encroached land — reclaimed. The Chief Minister's Office of Assam announced on Wednesday, 21 October 2026 that coordinated eviction drives across three districts have cleared unauthorized occupations on that scale, with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma confirming the figures.

What 638 hectares actually means on the ground

To put the number in perspective: 638 hectares is roughly the area of nearly 900 standard football pitches. These are not paper clearances — eviction drives in Assam involve boots on the ground: revenue officers, forest department personnel, and police working in coordinated teams to physically vacate illegally occupied public and forest land. The operations span multiple departments and, in a state where land pressure is acute, each hectare reclaimed carries real administrative and political weight.

Assam's long campaign to reclaim public and forest land

Assam has run periodic eviction campaigns for decades, but the frequency and scale of drives have intensified significantly since CM Himanta Biswa Sarma took office in May 2021. The drives are rooted in the enforcement of state land revenue laws and forest protection statutes, and they consistently target unauthorized settlements on government-owned and forest-classified land.

The political backdrop matters. The Northeast has faced long-standing demographic pressures — population movement, agricultural encroachment, and competition over scarce river-plain land — that successive state governments have struggled to manage. Sarma's administration has framed these eviction operations explicitly as a defence of indigenous land rights, arguing that uncontrolled encroachment displaces communities with legitimate historical claims to Assam's land.

Three districts, one coordinated push

Operations spanning three districts simultaneously signal a coordinated, state-directed push rather than isolated local actions. Multi-district drives require advance planning between district collectors, forest range officers, and police superintendents — the kind of administrative bandwidth that signals political priority at the top.

The drives place two sets of interests in direct tension: the state's obligation to protect public land and indigenous rights on one side, and the welfare of those displaced — many of whom may have lived on encroached land for years — on the other. Rehabilitation measures for affected families, and any legal challenges that follow, will determine how this chapter closes.

Eyes on the courts and the remaining districts

Eviction drives of this magnitude rarely end without legal skirmishes. Court challenges — in Gauhati High Court and, occasionally, before the Supreme Court — have paused previous operations and forced the state to demonstrate compliance with due process. Whether the current round faces similar judicial scrutiny will be the key variable to watch in the weeks ahead.

With 638 hectares cleared across three districts, the question the state government now faces is whether the numbers hold — or whether temporary clearance gives way to fresh encroachment, as has happened in previous cycles. The administration's answer to that question will define whether this drive is a durable shift or a headline moment.