Red Flags Galore in Great Nicobar Island’s Proposed Greenfield Airport

New Delhi: The Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost in the Andaman and Nicobar Island complex in the Bay of Bengal, is at the heart of numerous proposed projects that threaten the people, ecology and biodiversity of the Island. Among the list of proposed projects is the Greenfield International Airport, part of the ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar’ that is to be developed over a five-year period, at an estimated cost of Rs 8,583 crores. 

But the airport’s development and construction clash with the rights of residents, endanger the biodiversity of the area as well as the livelihoods and survival of indigenous tribal communities, and point to potential conflicts of interest in the clearances given to the airport by government agencies. Concerns also abound regarding the intended use of the airport, and in the legality of the land allocated for the site of the airport.   

Land concerns

In the realm of construction, the term “greenfield” refers to a land where no previous development has taken place. As per the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of the project, the 8.45 sq km of the area demarcated for the airport –  in the southeastern part of the island – partly consists of “vacant land”, “submerged land”, and “land owned by the government”.

The remaining land is privately-owned: 234 families (of mostly ex-servicemen who were settled here by the government) living in two revenue villages – Gandhi Nagar and Shastri Nagar in Great Nicobar tehsil – use it for agriculture, residential, and commercial purposes. It is for the acquisition of this private land of 4.048 sq km that the Delhi-based Probe Research and Social Development Pvt. Ltd. (PRSD) – which was awarded the tender at Rs. 21,73,475 on March 11, 2024 (as stated in the Tender summary report) – carried out a Social Impact Assessment (SIA).

The draft of the SIA report was submitted to the Directorate of Social Welfare, Andaman and Nicobar Administration – the local body tasked with conducting the Public Hearing which was held in the respective villages on June 28, 2024. The hearing had been postponed twice, after concerned citizens and journalists pointed out the violation of SIA rules including the fact that the SIA report has to be made available in the local language at least three weeks before the public hearing. The Pramukh of the Gram Panchayat, in his letter to the Director of Social Welfare dated June 7, 2024, also asked for the hearing to be held in July so that the concerned stakeholders settled elsewhere could reach the island on time for the hearing. He further made a case that the project will have a huge impact on the lives of not just the residents of the affected villages but all islanders of Great Nicobar as well as the neighboring Little Nicobar Island. 

No clarity regarding the intended use of the airport

The 6,000 Peak Hour Passenger (PHP, which means that the terminal can process 6,000 passengers at a particular time) International Airport is one of the four components of the ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar’. The airport clubbed with an International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), a power plant, and a township area were all granted an Environmental and CRZ Clearance by the MoEFCC on November 11, 2022.

During the Public Hearing of the Environment Impact Assessment of the project held on January 27, 2022, the airport was described as a Greenfield International Airport. However, during the appraisal of the EIA process – in the 297th meeting of the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC-Infra-I) held on May 24 and 25, 2022 it was stated that as per the directive of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the airport will be developed as a joint military-civil dual-use airport under the operational control of the Indian Navy.

Consequently, the deliberations of the EAC regarding the impact of the airport were not made public in the minutes of the committee’s meetings or the subsequent correspondences that led to the Environmental Clearance of the project. Moreover, by citing the airport’s status, important details such as the method of enumeration of trees to be cut for the project were not mentioned in Form-2 (a crucial document for getting environmental clearance) and denied when an activist sought the information through an RTI later. Now, the draft SIA report has no mention of the status of the airport and again describes it as an International Airport mainly targeted at boosting tourism and improving connectivity to the island. 

Illegality in the status of the land for the airport?

Source: Revised effective area under ICRZ submitted by the project proponent and the recommendation letter by ANCZMA provided to MoEFCC on July 8, 2022,
*Final EIA Report, Chapter 2(B), Vimta Labs pvt. ltd., March 2022

The National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone), Kolkata, in its order dated April 3, 2023, directed the MoEFCC to constitute a High Powered Committee (HPC) to revisit the Environmental Clearance (EC) granted to the project. The committee was to examine the deficiencies in the EC, one of which was the inclusion of areas falling under ICRZ-IA (i.e. portion of shore critical for turtles, corals, and other intertidal biodiversity) in the sites of the project. The HPC was mandated to submit a report till which, any construction was temporarily stayed by the NGT.

There has not been any notice issued by the MoEFCC on whether the HPC has submitted its report and whether the stay has been lifted. It is also not known whether the area falling under ICRZ-IA has been removed from the site demarcated for the airport. The site for the airport also falls under the Tribal Reserve Area declared under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribes (PAT) Regulation, 1956, but to date it is not clear whether the Andaman and Nicobar Administration has executed its proposal to de-notify the Tribal Reserve Area. Furthermore, the area close to the site for the airport includes parts of 121.87 sq km of forest land and 8.88 sq km of deemed forest land, which was diverted in October 2022, following meetings with the Gram Panchayat as well as the local Tribal Council.

However, the latter withdrew the NOC for the forest diversion citing that it was obtained by wrongful means, rendering the grant of Stage-I Forest Clearance null and void. Hence the legal status of the site of the airport is also under question. The Stage-II Forest Clearance for the entire ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar’ project is still pending.

Notably, the Andaman and Nicobar administration justifies not having issued any land rights to the forest-dwelling communities of the island under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2005, by saying that the communities enjoy full rights because of the Tribal Reserves declared under the PAT Regulation. If the Tribal Reserve in Great Nicobar is to be de-notified, the Shompen and the Nicobarese people need to be accorded the rights to their existing and ancestral land as per the FRA, as is evident from the recent statement of the Tribal Affairs Minister, Mr. Jual Oram to The Hindu.

Airplanes in, crocs and corals out

While much has been written about the social and environmental impact of the Rs. 35,959-crore ICTT port, the clearance for the site of the airport too is riddled with grave environmental violations. Parts of the airport site have swathes of primary rainforest that will be clear-felled. But no information on the number of trees to be axed for the airport is available in the public domain. Even the draft SIA report, which enlists the species and number of trees that will be “affected” due to the land acquisition, only mentions trees such as coconut, betel nut, mango, guava, and other fruit-bearing trees planted by residents on their properties. However, there is a curious mention of ‘wooden trees’ in the list which amounts to 2,731 individuals. There is no mention in any project documents if these trees are the rainforest trees that are to be logged to make way for the airport.

The Great Nicobar Island, where the projects are proposed, serves as a stopover for many migratory birds on the East Asian-Australasia bird flyway that passes over the archipelago. The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), in their supplementary report submitted along with the EIA report, suggests removing all fruiting trees within 1 km of the airport boundary, and using crackers and ultrasonic waves to scare the birds. Regarding the impact on migratory birds, ZSI denies that Great Nicobar falls under any migratory route, contradicting their own study (Sivaperumen et al, 2018). 

While the Galathea Bay beach (site of the port) due to its gradual slope and finer sands is visited by hundreds of Giant Leatherback turtles to lay eggs every year, the beaches of both Gandhi Nagar and Shastri Nagar, where the airport is proposed, are predominantly visited by the Green Sea, Olive Ridley, and Hawksbill turtles every year. The impact of land reclamation on these beaches and the turtles has not been assessed by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which was tasked with analyzing the eco-sensitivity of the beaches in Great Nicobar in the context of the proposed project. As per an article in the Times of India published on July 30, 2024, scientists at WII have admitted that the impact of the airport on the turtle nesting beaches is yet to be done, and yet the project was granted the clearance.

The beach in Gandhi Nagar supports 76 species of Scleractinian or ‘stony’ corals and the beach in Shastri Nagar harbors 111 species of these corals: the beach has an area of 1.04 sq km under reef cover. The ZSI, in the supplementary report submitted as a part of the EIA report,  states that coral colonies impacted by dredging and land reclamation for the port and the airport will be translocated to other sites on the island with a similar environment. However, in a subsequent report titled “Conservation and management plan for coral reefs of Great Nicobar Island” submitted in response to the “Additional Details Sought” by the Expert Appraisal Committee in July 2022, the beach in Gandhi Nagar, which will also be dredged to accommodate the runway, is listed as the location where  the translocated corals from Galathea will be replanted.

Similarly, the WII, in their ‘Conservation and management Plan of Saltwater crocodile in Great Nicobar Island’ submitted in response to the “Additional Details Sought” by the Expert Appraisal Committee in July 2022, states that the runway requires reclamation of the wetland where there are crocodiles. The plan is to translocate these crocodiles and radio-tag them to monitor their movements – “if” they are released in the wild. However, the impact of the crocodile relocation on the ecology of the water bodies where these crocodiles will be released is not mentioned anywhere in the report. The altered river ecology will in turn have an impact on the diet of the Shompen, who derive a substantial amount of their food from rivers and creeks.

As for the ground-nesting Nicobar megapode, the mounds of about 9-16 birds that live in the proximity of the airport will be permanently destroyed. The Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, a WII subsidiary in its ‘Comprehensive Plan for Nicobar Megapode Conservation in the Nicobar Archipelago’ submitted to the EAC in May 2022, suggests the relocation and captive management for this shy, elusive bird whose numbers took a plunge post-tsunami, and are still dwindling. The management plan budgets building a temporary holding enclosure that exactly resembles the megapodes’ natural habitat, adding that the injured birds or those that are unable to relocate will be kept in captivity for “restocking”.

Conflicts of interest

The WII, ZSI and SACON – the very organisations whose reports formed the basis of the Environmental and CRZ Clearance granted to the project – have been entrusted with the preparation and implementation of wildlife conservation plans for a collective budget of Rs. 2,017.63 crores as per the minutes of the joint meeting of monitoring committees responsible for the implementation of Environment Management Plan for Great Nicobar held on March 31, 2023.

Interestingly, as per the minutes, the conservation plans are being sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs before going to the MoEFCC for approvals. There is a complete lack of transparency and ignorance towards fulfilling the conditions laid out in the Environmental Clearance. For instance, the aforementioned minutes of the joint meeting had to be procured through an RTI even when the Environmental Clearance issued to the project had clearly stated that the minutes of such meetings must be put up on the website of the Andaman and Nicobar Forest Department. 

Despite over a 100 ex-bureaucrats appealing for a fair and thorough Social Impact Assessment and the Indian National Congress demanding the suspension of the Environmental and Forest Clearances granted to the project, the Public Hearing for the Social Impact Assessment of the airport was held on June 28 this year at the Community Halls of the respective affected villages. According to a few attendees who were present in the hearing, most ex-servicemen settlers seemed to have no objections with their land being acquired for the airport. However, they raised concerns over the lack of information about the location of the rehabilitation, and the circle rate (the minimum property registration value evaluated by the government) for the land in Shastri Nagar (Rs. 113 per square metre) being lower than that in Gandhi Nagar (Rs. 131 per square metre).

While some participants opined that they should be settled in Campbell Bay (the administrative hub of the island), others wished to be allocated land next to the airport, and given preference for running any commercial establishments that may crop up in the premises once the construction is over. Some of the other concerns raised during the hearing were demands for a fair compensation for the felling of coconut and areca nut trees as well as a provision for adequate land to keep farm animals. In response to these comments, the conducting body – which comprised of representatives from the Directorate of Social Welfare, PRSD (the agency that conducted the SIA), ANIIDCO (the project proponent), and the members of the village Gram Panchayat – said that an Expert Committee will be formed to conduct the land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation of the two affected villages and all the issues raised during the meeting will be addressed by the committee. 

As per some of the written objections that were submitted by civilian groups, the independence of the agency conducting the SIA (PRSD) is questionable as the members of the project proponent, ANIIDCO, were involved in its selection. As per the Social Impact Assessment and Consent Rules (2013), an independent body unconnected to government bodies should have been at the helm, and ANIIDCO should not have been involved in its selection. 

All these issues put together raise numerous red flags regarding the proposed greenfield airport on Great Nicobar Island, the legality of the land allocated for it, the airport’s intended use and the impacts it could cause on the people and biodiversity of the island. 

Suman S. has worked in the Andaman and Nicobar island complex. Their identity has been concealed to protect their ability to work in the future.