India, July 4 -- In a major victory for farmers in Uran, the Maharashtra government has withdrawn controversial notices that threatened to take over agricultural land left fallow for two consecutive years. The decision came after a massive protest march on Thursday to the Uran tehsil office, where villagers alleged a backdoor attempt to forcibly acquire their land under the guise of a central government scheme.

The farmers, under the banner of the MMRDA KSC Navnagar Virodhi Shetkari Samiti Raigad, accused the state of misusing the Agri Stack initiative-a digital land record and agriculture database scheme-to dispossess them of their ancestral land for the ambitious Karnala-Sai-Chirner New Town project, also dubbed "Third Mumbai".

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