Great Nicobar project 'commercial enterprise', not strategic: Jairam Ramesh to Rajnath Singh
In Parliament, the Great Nicobar Island Development Project (GNIDP) was described from an alternative position as primarily a commercial transshipment and township venture, with strategic/defence justification questioned as insufficient to explain its scale and environmental cost (the strategic rationale is covered separately).
Concerns raised centred on the project's environmental clearance process, the 2021 denotification of the Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, threatened biodiversity (including nesting leatherback sea turtles and coral colonies), and impacts on the indigenous Shompen community.
The debate reflects a broader, long-running scrutiny of the project by environmental researchers, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), and international observers since environmental clearance was granted in November 2022.
The exchange in Parliament is the latest round in a series of formal communications between the environment and defence establishments on the project's justification and safeguards.
Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006
The EIA Notification, 2006, issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, mandates prior environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) before specified categories of projects can commence construction or expansion.
Key Details
- Projects are classified as Category A (appraised at the Central level by an Expert Appraisal Committee, EAC) or Category B (appraised at the State/UT level by a State Expert Appraisal Committee, SEAC), based on scale, location sensitivity, and pollution potential.
- Most Category A projects and Category B1 projects must undergo public consultation, comprising a public hearing near the project site conducted by the State Pollution Control Board and a written-comments window, before the EAC/SEAC finalises its recommendation.
- The regulatory authority is required to decide on EAC/SEAC recommendations within 45 days; Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules under the Environment (Protection) Act separately restrict construction in ecologically sensitive coastal zones such as CRZ-1A (ports are generally barred in CRZ-1A, which covers ecologically sensitive areas including coral reefs and turtle nesting grounds).
- GNIDP received environmental clearance in November 2022, following Expert Appraisal Committee review in 2021; the process and adequacy of the underlying EIA report (including its coral and turtle-nesting assessments) have been challenged before the NGT.
Objections raised in Parliament echo the specific EIA-process concerns already before the NGT — including allegations that the port site's coral cover was undercounted in the impact assessment and that clearance timelines preceded, rather than followed, full ecological data-gathering.
Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary Denotification
Galathea Bay was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1997 under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, primarily to protect a critical nesting site for the Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), the world's largest sea turtle species. Its protected status was withdrawn (denotified) in January 2021 to enable the transshipment port project.
Key Details
- The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 permits alteration of a sanctuary's boundaries via a defined statutory process (involving the State Wildlife Board and, where applicable, the National Board for Wildlife) but does not explicitly provide for wholesale denotification of an entire sanctuary — a legal ambiguity raised in challenges to the Great Nicobar denotification.
- Leatherback turtles are listed on the IUCN Red List as globally "Vulnerable," and Galathea Bay is identified in India's National Marine Turtle Action Plan as a nationally important nesting beach.
- The Zoological Survey of India recorded a significant number of coral colonies at the project site — cited before the NGT as being inconsistent with the port EIA's characterisation of the area.
The denotification, carried out before the draft EIA for the port was released, is central to the argument that environmental due diligence followed the decision to build the port rather than informing it — a sequencing issue raised as evidence that the project's justification needs closer scrutiny.
Shompen Tribal Rights and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) Protections
The Shompen are a hunter-gatherer community native to Great Nicobar Island, classified by the Government of India as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) — a sub-category of Scheduled Tribes recognised as having pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, stagnant/declining population, and high vulnerability to external contact.
Key Details
- The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are administered as a Union Territory; tribal areas and reserves there are protected primarily through the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, rather than the Fifth or Sixth Schedule frameworks that apply to mainland and North-East tribal areas.
- Government estimates place the Shompen and Nicobarese population affected by the project's tribal reserve area in the low thousands; international experts have flagged heightened epidemiological and cultural-survival risk from large-scale population influx associated with port and township construction.
- Free, prior and informed consent and rehabilitation safeguards for PVTGs are addressed through Tribal Welfare and forest-rights frameworks, including provisions under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which the project's forest-diversion component (involving large-scale tree felling) also engages.
The environmental-cost critique raised in Parliament links directly to Shompen welfare concerns — framing large-scale non-tribal settlement and infrastructure as a survival risk for a PVTG community with no history of large-scale external contact, distinct from, and in addition to, the biodiversity concerns around turtles and coral.
- Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary: declared 1997, denotified January 2021, prior to draft EIA publication.
- Environmental clearance for GNIDP: granted November 2022, after Expert Appraisal Committee review in 2021.
- Estimated forest/tree loss: government estimate of roughly 964,000 trees to be felled; independent estimates cited as higher.
- Affected indigenous population: Shompen and Nicobarese communities, both native to Great Nicobar, with the Shompen classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG).
- Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) IUCN status: Vulnerable; Galathea Bay is a recognised nesting beach under India's National Marine Turtle Action Plan.
- Project cost: approximately ₹81,000 crore across port, airport, power plant, and township components.