Aathira Perinchery 
Bengaluru: On June 17, the Indian National Congress – India’s largest opposition party – demanded that the union government suspend all existing clearances given to the upcoming ‘mega infra’ projects on Great Nicobar Island.
In a statement tweeted by senior Congress leader and Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh, the Congress also said that given the many “red flags” that pop up in the way the project has been pushed through, the government should also conduct a “thorough impartial review” of the proposed project.
The projects on the Island – worth Rs. 72,000 crores in total – include an international transshipment port and terminal, an airport, a township and a power plant. Social scientists, activists and conservationists have highlighted that the projects will impact both people – the indigenous Shompen and Nicobarese tribes who live on the island – and biodiversity, ranging from coral reefs to rainforest trees.
Grave threat, red flags
As The Wire Science has previously reported, a whopping 8.5 lakh rainforest trees across 130 square kilometers will be felled for the mega infrastructure project that is to come up on the Great Nicobar Island, which is the southernmost island in the Nicobar complex in the Bay of Bengal.
The project will also affect more than 1,700 people belonging to the indigenous Shompen and Nicobarese communities, social scientists had told The Wire. The construction of the projects will involve dredging the ocean, and reclaiming 300 hectares of land from the ocean which will also affect more than 20,000 coral colonies surrounding the island.
On the other hand, the union government has pushed forward the mega project citing several reasons including national security and defense requirements. The union environment ministry even denotified the Galathea Bay wildlife sanctuary (the Galathea Bay is where part of the project will come up) in 2021, and quickly gave both environmental and forest clearances for the project.
In the statement tweeted by Ramesh on June 17, the Congress said that the union government’s proposed mega infrastructure projects on Great Nicobar Island would be “a grave threat” to both the Island’s tribal communities, and the natural ecosystem.
It listed several “red flags” that have popped up during the course of the initiation of the project. It pointed out that the union environment ministry has given ‘in principle’ clearance for diverting 13,075 hectares of forest land, an area that amounts to about 15% of the island’s land area and “constitutes one of the country’s largest forest diversions in a nationally and globally unique rainforest ecosystem”.
However, compensatory afforestation for the loss of this forest tract has been planned in Haryana, “thousands of kilometers away and in a vastly different ecological zone”, the statement noted. It also touched on how the area where the project is planned is an earthquake prone zone, and saw a permanent subsidence of about 15 feet during the tsunami of December 2004.
“Locating such a massive project here puts investment, infrastructure, people, and the ecology in harm’s way,” the Congress’s statement read.
The administration has “compromised on due process in its rush to get approval”, and the project threatens the wellbeing and survival of the Shompen, an indigenous community classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, the statement added.
“The Administration did not adequately consult the Tribal Council of the Islands, as is legally required. The Tribal Council of Great Nicobar Island has in fact expressed objections to the Project, claiming that the authorities had earlier “rushed them” into signing a “No Objection” letter based on misleading information,” the statement said.
The No Objection letter has since been revoked, it pointed out. The Administration has also ignored the Island’s Shompen Policy notified by the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which requires that authorities prioritize the Shompen peoples’ welfare when considering “large scale development proposals” in the area, the statement said.
The statement also noted that the Administration “appears to have skipped the legally mandated consultation with the Scheduled Tribes Commission, required by Article 338(9) of the Indian Constitution”; the “Social Impact Assessment” conducted as part of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 ignored the existence of the Shompen and the Nicobarese, it added. The mega project also thus violates the “letter and spirit” of the Forest Rights Act (2006), the statement noted.
Suspend clearances, conduct impartial review
“In view of these numerous violations of due process, legal and constitutional provisions protecting tribal communities, and the project’s disproportionate ecological and human cost, the Indian National Congress demands an immediate suspension of all clearances and conduct of a thorough impartial review of the proposed project, including by the Parliamentary committees concerned,” Congress’s statement said.
Incidentally, India’s apex green court, the National Green Tribunal had said in 2023 that it would not “interfere” with the Forest and Environment Clearances accorded to the mega developmental project on Great Nicobar Island. Conservationists even pointed out how disappointing this decision by the green court was.
The NGT proposed putting together a High Powered Committee to look into some of the issues revolving around the mega project, including its impact on coral reefs nearby. However, the committee comprises government and other representatives (including members of the NITI Aayog, which was instrumental in pushing the project forward) who have already offered support to the project.
Experts have also repeatedly pointed out the many social justice concerns and the rights violations that the mega project would result in, for the local indigenous communities who live on Great Nicobar Island. Former civil servants wrote to the Indian president in January last year, asking that the project be shelved. In February this year, genocide experts too wrote to the President on the same issue: they said that this will be a “death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide”.
“These are human rights and social justice issues which have been shrouded and not given due consideration,” independent researcher Manish Chandi, told The Wire. Chandi has not only studied biodiversity in the island for nearly two and a half decades, but also served as a member of the Research and Advisory Board of the Department of Tribal Welfare from 2011-2019 and has studied the links between local communities and the natural environment in the islands.
“Three habitations or more of the Shompen community will be affected but the EIA denies their existence by saying no habitations will be affected,” he told The Wire.
“Similarly the Great Nicobarese have been requesting for years to return to their home along the west coast, which they’re being denied…the proposal wants to use their homeland for tourist resorts,” said Chandi.
As Chandi had told The Wire earlier, the Nicobarese were relocated from their settlement at Chingenh (located on the south side of the island, near the east coast) — which now comes under the area of the mega project — following the tsunami of 2004. They are currently put up in Campbell Bay, which is located further north along the east coast of the Great Nicobar Island. Despite their repeated requests, they have not been permitted to go back to Chingenh.
Chandi had earlier also told The Wire that the unique Andaman Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, 1956, also protects the rights of these communities. But despite this, and the Forest Rights Act which has not yet been implemented, the voices of tribal communities are still not being heard, he had pointed out.