Mapping the Policy Landscape of Land Acquisition and Resettlement in Indian Mining: A Bibliometric and Textual Analysis of Legal and Institutional Frameworks

Purpose: The study explores the evolution and thematic focus of land acquisition and resettlement policies in India’s coal mining sector, with a particular emphasis on Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) and national legal frameworks. It seeks to identify dominant policy themes, linguistic trends, and emerging areas of concern through bibliometric and textual analysis. Methodology: Using BioShiny and R programming language, the study performs bibliometric analysis on a curated dataset of policy documents, legal texts, sustainability reports, and scholarly literature. Tools such as word clouds, co-word networks, term frequency analysis, and thematic mapping are utilized to visualize key policy trends, discourse shifts, and lexical intensity over time. Findings: The analysis reveals a progressive shift in the policy landscape from state-driven land acquisition models to more inclusive, compensation-focused, and participatory frameworks post-2013. The prominence of keywords like “livelihood,” “justice,” “consent,” and “sustainability” reflects increasing sensitivity to social and environmental equity. The study also identifies gaps in ecological integration and stakeholder language in earlier frameworks. Originality/Value: This study makes a new methodological contribution by using bibliometric techniques and policy discourse analysis together in the context of mining governance. It gives lawmakers, business planners, and researchers useful information that can help them make policy language more in line with what really happens.