The Union environment ministry has told the National Green Tribunal that no laws or court orders were violated in granting environmental clearance to the Centre’s Great Nicobar Island Development Project, reported The Indian Express.
The Great Nicobar project involves the construction of a Rs 35,000-crore trans-shipment port, an international airport, a power plant, a township and tourism infrastructure spread over more than 160 square kilometers of land. It was granted final environmental clearance on November 4.
The ministry also filed a request with the tribunal seeking that a larger, six-judge bench hear a batch of petitions concerning the project.
The submissions came in response to two petitions by activist Ashish Kothari and were based on the confidential report of a high-powered committee formed after an order of the National Green Tribunal in April 2023.
One of Kothari’s petitions sought that the Centre be barred from carrying out any development work in the Island Coastal Regulation Zone areas categorised as ‘1A’. This refers to ecologically sensitive areas lying between the low-tide and high-tide lines. The petition claimed that the project would violate the Island Coastal Regulation Zone Notification of 2019, which bars the development of such areas.
The second petition claimed that the environment ministry had not complied with the tribunal’s orders on revisiting the environment clearance.
The Union Environment Ministry told the National Green Tribunal that it has thoroughly examined the concerns raised in these petitions and claimed that no part of the project fell in the Island Coastal Regulation Zone-1A areas.
It also cited an assessment by the Zoological Survey of India to state that no corals were found at the site of a proposed port in Galathea Bay. About 16,150 coral colonies were found near the proposed port and these would be translocated to other sites, the ministry said, citing the high-powered committee’s report.
However, the ministry declined to place the high-powered committee’s report about the project in the public domain citing “defence, strategic and national security”.
Also read: How the loss of a tropical forest in Nicobar could end up funding a jungle safari in Haryana
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