Suspend clearances for Great Nicobar Project, let parliamentary panel review it: Congress to Centre

The Congress on Saturday asked the Union government to suspend all clearances granted to the “short-sighted” Great Nicobar Project.

Expected to cost Rs 72,000 crore, the project involves the construction of a trans-shipment port, an international airport, a power plant, a township and tourism infrastructure spread over more than 160 square kilometres of land.

In a letter to Union Minister of Environment Bhupender Yadav on Saturday, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the proposed project should be reviewed “thoroughly and impartially”, including by “parliamentary committees concerned”.

The Great Nicobar Project can have “catastrophic ecological and human consequences and has been pushed through by violating due process and side stepping legal and constitutional provisions protecting tribal communities”, alleged Ramesh.

He also claimed that a high-power committee formed by the National Green Tribunal for investigating the project's environmental impact operated in an “opaque” manner and had not released details of its on-ground investigations in Great Nicobar.

The Congress leader further warned that the project could result in the “genocide” of the Shompen, an indigenous community classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group.

“The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change must fulfil its dharma [duty] and not allow itself to be reduced to becoming a project proponent – especially when the project has decidedly disastrous human, social and ecological consequences,” wrote Ramesh.

On Thursday, Ramesh asked Yadav in Rajya Sabha about the project's status and the government's plans to address the loss of forest cover in the region, reported The Hindu.

The minister responded that all clearances for the project were granted with provisions for "compensatory afforestation", and consultations were held with expert organisations like the Zoological Survey of India and the Botanical Survey of India.

Details of the remedial measures to address ecological loss are available on the website of the Ministry of Environment, he said.

In June, the Congress called for the withdrawal of clearances and a comprehensive review of the infrastructure project, presenting similar arguments.

Experts have also raised alarm about the project on environmental and ecological grounds, as well as for alleged violations of the rights of local tribal residents.

Also read:

• Can a safari park outside Delhi make up for a lost Nicobar forest?

• How the loss of a tropical forest in Nicobar could end up funding a jungle safari in Haryana