Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has renewed his objections to the Great Nicobar Island Project in a June 3 letter replying to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav’s response of May 27.
Mr. Ramesh said Mr. Yadav’s reply effectively conceded that the project’s environmental clearance was not based on comprehensive, three-season primary data but on a “single seasonal cycle.” He went further, contending that the underlying institutional studies rested on baseline surveys gathered over only a few weeks, and that historical secondary data held by bodies such as the Zoological Survey of India and the Wildlife Institute of India could not substitute for site-specific primary assessment.
He also challenged the Minister’s reliance on the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The April 2023 order, he noted, recorded “unanswered deficiencies” and remanded the clearance for re-examination, while the February 2026 judgment made no finding on data adequacy. Mr. Ramesh called it a “perversion of due process” that the institutions which prepared the studies had effectively reviewed their own work. He cited maps by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) showing erosion along Galathea Bay — where coastal-zone rules require comprehensive EIA — and faulted both the Minister and the Tribunal for ignoring a 2009 ministry memorandum and the Ports EIA manual requiring multi-season data. On confidentiality, Ramesh pressed for the release of the High Powered Committee report, handed to the NGT in a “sealed cover” in October 2025.
He argued that the township master plan and the airport’s detailed project report were already public, and questioned why the re-examination of the clearance alone should remain secret.
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Mr. Ramesh also aimed the project’s strategic justification, arguing the narrative had “suddenly shifted” toward a defence rationale in the face of ecological evidence. He said India’s strategic objectives would be better served by expanding INS Baaz at Campbell Bay and other Andaman and Nicobar Command assets, calling the project “overwhelmingly a commercial enterprise.”
Yadav’s letter maintained that the project was appraised comprehensively through multiple Expert Appraisal Committee meetings, marine and shoreline studies and High Powered Committee review, and that the NGT had twice declined to interfere while ordering strict compliance with 42 conditions. He defended one-season monitoring as consistent with the applicable manual and justified the report’s confidentiality under the RTI Act on strategic and security grounds. Posting his reply on X, Ramesh wrote that while “ecological havoc is assured,” it was “somewhat reassuring” that “democratic windows of engagement — howsoever ritualistic — still exist.”
Published - June 03, 2026 11:33 am IST
Andaman and Nicobar Islands / politics / national politics / environmental politics / environmental issues
Source: The Hindu - India News
