News Highlights:
- Recently, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered a stay on the Great Nicobar Island project.
- It constituted a committee to revisit the environmental clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
Great Nicobar project
- About
- The Great Nicobar Island (GNI) is a mega project to be implemented at the southern end of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
- The project includes an international container transhipment terminal, an international airport, township development, and a 450 MVA gas and solar-based power plant over an extent of 16,610 hectares on the island.
- The port will be controlled by the Indian Navy, while the airport will have dual military-civilian functions and will cater to tourism as well.
- A total of 166.1 sq km along the southeastern and southern coasts of the island have been identified for the project along a coastal strip of width between 2 km and 4 km.
- Some 130 sq km of forests have been sanctioned for diversion, and 9.64 lakh trees are likely to be felled.
- Project components:
- Galathea Bay International Container Transhipment Terminal (Galathea Bay ICTT), with 14.2 million TEUs (units of cargo) capacity eventually.
- Great Nicobar International Airport (GNIA): greenfield airport with a peak hour capacity of 4,000 passengers.
- Great Nicobar Gas and Solar Power Plant (Great Nicobar GSPP): with 450-MVA capacity, spread over 16,610 hectares.
- Coastal cities: two new greenfield coastal cities.
Purpose of Developing:
- Economic Reasons:
- Great Nicobar is equidistant from Colombo to the southwest and Port Klang and Singapore to the southeast, and positioned close to the East-West international shipping corridor, through which a very large part of the world’s shipping trade passes.
- The proposed ICTT can potentially become a hub for cargo ships travelling on this route.
- As per the NITI Aayog report, the proposed port will allow Great Nicobar to participate in the regional and global maritime economy by becoming a major player in cargo transhipment.
- Strategic Reasons:
- The proposal to develop Great Nicobar was first floated in the 1970s and its importance for national security and consolidation of the Indian Ocean Region has been repeatedly underlined.
- Increasing Chinese assertion in the Bay of Bengal and the Indo-Pacific has added great urgency to this imperative in recent years.
Related Concerns:
- Ecologically important and fragile region:
- The proposed massive infrastructure development in an ecologically important and fragile region has alarmed many environmentalists.
- The loss of tree cover will not only affect the flora and fauna on the island, but it will also lead to increased runoff and sediment deposits in the ocean, impacting the coral reefs in the area.
- The project area within a 10 km radius of Galthea Bay is an ecologically sensitive zone and home to rare fauna such as Leatherback Sea Turtles, saltwater crocodiles, and Nicobar macaques.
- Environmentalists have also flagged the loss of mangroves on the island as a result of the development project.
- People:
- This project will affect the population of over 3.5 lakhs (350,000), which may cause a threat to the indigenous communities.
- Around 1761 inhabitants, including indigenous Shompen people and Nicobarese communities of this island, are likely to be affected by this project. 853 square kilometres of this island is designated as a tribal reserve under the Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, 1956.
- This means that the land is meant for the exclusive use of the community and others cannot access the area without their express permission.
- Around 10% of the tribal reserve of the island will be affected by this project. According to the Forest Rights Act, of 2006, the Shompen people are the legal sole authority to preserve the forest reserve.
Government’s steps to address the concerns:
- Relocating coral reef:
- The Zoological Survey of India is currently in the process of assessing how much of the reef will have to be relocated for the project.
- India successfully translocated a coral reef from the Gulf of Mannar to the Gulf of Kutch earlier.
- Conservation plan:
- A conservation plan for the leatherback turtle is also being put in place.
- As per the government, the project site is outside the eco-sensitive zones of Campbell Bay and Galathea National Park.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: The Hindu