As NITI Aayog’s Great Nicobar Island (GNI) project makes headlines, with politicians and conservationists criticizing the planned “holistic development,” LCW researcher @raasaa_Madras explains the environmental concerns and constitutional violations in the Rs 72,000 cr plan.

The GNI project, launched in 2021, envisages an International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), a greenfield international airport with a peak-hour capacity of 4,000 passengers, a township, and a 450 MVA gas & solar power plant spread across 16,610 hectares. The project is being implemented by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO).

The project is strategically important for India amid China’s expanding footprint across the Indo-Pacific region, especially Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok. Given its geographical location, the A&N Islands would be the first eastern line of offence for India’s maritime security.

he project could accrue significant economic benefits as GNI sits directly above the Malacca Strait, which facilitates trade between the West and East. Currently, nearly 75% of India’s transshipment cargo is handled outside India, with Columbo alone accounting for 50% of this.

Despite the upsides, the project is facing significant opposition due to its potential irreversible impact on the island’s indigenous communities and pristine rainforests. The proposed airport (834.64 ha) alone will impact 1,061 people and fell 72,664 trees. Nearly 90% of community resources in the Shastri Nagar and Gandhi Nagar villages on GNI will become inaccessible to villagers.

The project site is in a Tribal Reserve Area, inhabited by the forest-dwelling particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTG), the Shompen and the Great Nicobarese. There have been several procedural violations during the clearances phase that have ignored or railroaded the PVTGs rights.

During the preparation of the social impact assessment, neither the tribal council nor the PVTGs were consulted or addressed—they had no representation during the public hearings either. This violated a 2015 order that restricts ecotourism in the places frequented by the Shompen tribes.

A report by a local tribal researcher noted that the Great Nicobarese stated that they wished to return to their ancestral villages on the coasts of southern Great Nicobar, while the Shompen said they did not want any development in their areas and warned developers to stay out of their land. The government completely failed to acknowledge and accept the views of the island-dwelling communities.

To pave the way for the project, an Empowered Committee of the islands’ administration recommended de-notification of the tribal reserve area. In Nov 2020, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs provided an NOC to denotify 84.10 sq. km of the tribal reserve area on GNI.

The A&N administration justified the reduction of the tribal reserve by re-notifying some other land areas as tribal reserves as compensation. Till date, the circular for the de-notification and re-notification of the Tribal Reserve Area has not been made public.

In Nov 2022, the Tribal Council of Great Nicobar and Little Nicobar retracted its no-objection certificate (NOC) for the project, citing the administration's lack of transparency regarding the use of tribal reserve lands and the hasty process of obtaining consent from tribal communities.

Meanwhile, mainland residents, especially from Shastri Nagar and Gandhi Nagar villages, demanded reasonable compensation during the public hearing on the incomplete SIA for the airport.

In the 26 meetings of the Forest Advisory Committee, held between Oct 2020, when forest clearance was first sought, to Oct 2022, when forest clearance was granted, there was no mention of diversion of forests of GNI. But, the final Environmental Clearance and CRZ clearance awarded on 27 Oct 2022 included the diversion of 13075 ha of forest land, including 7065 ha of biosphere reserve.

Conservationists have also flagged concerns over the denotification of the Galathea Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest of 4 habitat spaces for endangered leatherback turtles in India, and the Megapode Wildlife Sanctuary, on 5 Jan 2021. They fear that ship movements at the entrance of Galathea Bay will lead to a loss of habitat and nesting sites for the leatherback turtles. Further, the Eco-Sensitive Zones of the Galathea National Park and Campbell Bay National Park were reduced in 2021 to 0 to 1 km from the standard 10 km buffer, further limiting the protection to rich biodiversity.