Congress demands House panel review of Great Nicobar infrastructure project

Speaking to The Indian Express, Ramesh said: “There will be a standing committee constituted soon on the environment. Whenever the standing panel is constituted, they should take this up. It will be formed in the next 15 days or so.” He said the project is now a “complete disaster” and alternatives could be looked at whenever they are presented.

The Great Nicobar infrastructure project involves construction of an international container transshipment terminal; township and area development, a 450 MVA gas and solar-based power plant, an airport for civilian and defence use.

The HPC had based its conclusion regarding the port’s layout outside the ecologically sensitive ICRZ-IA area on a ground-truthing exercise carried out by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM). The HPC’s conclusions were submitted in an affidavit to the NGT’s Kolkata bench last week by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO).

ANIIDCO’s affidavit was filed as a counter to a plea filed before the Kolkata bench alleging violation of a 2019 ICRZ notification. The plea had also prayed for furnishing of the HPC’s recommendations on the issue. Regarding the HPC’s conclusions, Ramesh said in his X post: “How can land categorisation change like this? Surely, some sanctity must be given to the local authority — the Andaman and Nicobar Coastal Management Authority, which knows more of ground-level realities — than to some ‘expert’ body that can be manipulated?”

“What is the new information available to ANIIDCO and to the NCSCM that they have managed to overturn everything that was said thus far and change the categorisation of the land? What is the due process for such recategorisation?” Ramesh asked.

A special bench of the NGT had formed HPC, headed by Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, in April 2023 in an order on a case challenging the environmental clearance to the Great Nicobar project.