Congress MP Jairam Ramesh during the Monsoon session of Parliament, in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh has written to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav to revoke all the environmental clearances accorded to the Great Nicobar Project. He further demanded that parliamentary panels review the project.
“The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change must fulfil its dharma and not allow itself to be reduced to becoming a project proponent – especially when the project has decidedly disastrous human, social and ecological consequences,” said the letter signed on Saturday.
On Thursday, Mr. Ramesh had asked the Minister in Rajya Sabha on the status of the project and how the government was planning to address the loss of forest cover in the region.
Mr. Yadav replied that all the clearances accorded for the project were accorded after accounting for the need for “compensatory afforestation” and expert organisations such as the Zoological Survey of India and the Botanical Survey of India had been consulted. The remedial measures to address ecological loss were given in detail on the Environment Ministry website.
In his letter on Saturday, Mr. Ramesh pointed out that a High-Power Committee constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to investigate environmental aspects of the project had operated in an “opaque” manner and details of its on-ground investigations in Great Nicobar had not been made public. The project, he added, could lead to “genocide” of the Shompen, an indigenous community of residents in the island over millennia.
In June, the Congress had demanded a withdrawal of clearances and a ground-up review of the ₹72,000 crore infrastructure project and adduced similar arguments.
The Great Nicobar Project, as it is called, involves developing a trans-shipment port, an international airport, township development, and a 450 MVA gas and solar-based power plant. The project area is expected to be spread over 130 sq. km. of pristine forest and has been accorded environmental clearance — one of the mandatory pre-requisites — by an expert committee. Several concerns by multiple groups have been raised on the project on environmental and ecological grounds as well as alleged violation of the rights of tribals, who are residents in the region.
