- Ongoing resistance to develop Great Nicobar Island got impetus with India’s leading political opposition party calling for the project’s clearances to be suspended.
- Legal proceedings challenging the project’s environmental clearance revealed that a key coastal authority said the project did not fall in fragile coastal zones where ports are prohibited.
- The rationale for the coastal authority’s conclusions and acceptance of these conclusions by a government committee, have not been made public.
India’s leading Opposition party, the Indian National Congress, has joined environmental experts and former bureaucrats in condemning the development of the Great Nicobar Island, saying it could have “catastrophic ecological and human consequences.” The central government is moving ahead with the project despite pending disputes on clearances awarded to it.
The “holistic development” of Great Nicobar envisions setting up an international container trans-shipment port, airport, gas and solar power plant, and township on the remote island, at a cost of Rs. 81,000 crore and nearly a million trees.
Legal proceedings in a case challenging the project’s environmental clearance revealed that the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) – an autonomous body tasked with supporting coastal management – “concluded” the project no longer fell in a no-go fragile coastal zone, which could facilitate the development of the port, the Indian Express reported.
A previous mapping exercise by the NCSCM had found that parts of the project, including the port, fell in the “ecologically most sensitive” CRZ 1A zones, where most development activity is prohibited. The recent “conclusion” by the NCSCM, however, states that the project area falls in the CRZ 1B zone, an intertidal zone where ports and harbours are allowed.
Despite the ongoing case in the National Green Tribunal, T. K, Ramachandran, secretary of the Ministry for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, told the media on August 4 that “there is no hurdle in its implementation,” and the government was going ahead with the project.
In a letter to environment minister Bhupender Yadav on August 10, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said existing clearances awarded to the project should be suspended and that it should be “thoroughly and impartially reviewed, including by the Parliamentary committees concerned.” Ramesh listed several opacities in the procedures that paved the way for the project, including violations in obtaining consent from tribal communities.
Difference in coastal zones
The NCSCM’s conclusions were revealed in an affidavit filed in the National Green Tribunal by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation Limited (ANIIDCO) in late July. ANIIDCO is the implementing agency of the project and was responding to a review petition filed by environmental activist Ashish Kothari.
The petition said that the project was in violation of the Island Coastal Regulation Zone notification 2019, since around seven square kilometres of the project falls in a CRZ 1A area. Of this, 0.63 square kilometers is under port and port reclamation, 0.6 square kilometers is under airport, and a majority, 5.84 square kilometers, is under proposed townships. These coastal zone areas had been outlined and recommended by the Andaman and Nicobar Coastal Zone Management Authority in July 2022. The petition asked that the project exclude these areas.
According to the notification, CRZ 1A areas are to be protected from major development activity because they have a presence of mangroves, corals, coral reefs, sea grass, and are nesting grounds for birds and turtles and other fragile ecosystems. CRZ 1B areas are also ecologically sensitive but are intertidal zones that permit the construction of ports and harbours with certain regulations.
Last year, the National Green Tribunal acknowledged there were certain “unanswered deficiencies” in the government’s approach to the development project and constituted a High Powered Committee (HPC), led by the Union Environment Ministry, to revisit the environmental clearance that had been granted to it. The HPC’s findings were never made public, citing security reasons. However, in its affidavit, ANIIDCO said the HPC had accepted the results of a “ground truthing” exercise by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management which “concluded” that the project did not fall in the 1A category.
“The NCSCM observed that the construction of the Port is not a permissible activity under CRZ 1A area but under CRZ 1B area. The NCSCM, hence, concluded that no part of the project area is falling under CRZ 1A area,” the affidavit says. Mongabay India has obtained a copy of the affidavit.
“How can land categorisation change like this? Surely, some sanctity must be given to the local authority – the Andaman and Nicobar Coastal Management Authority, which knows more of ground-level realities – than to some ‘expert’ body that can be manipulated?” Ramesh said in a post on the social media website X (formerly Twitter).
According to the ICRZ notification 2019, revisions of these plans can occur if a “doubt” is raised by state or union territory coastal authority, who refers the matter to the NCSCM for verification. The NCSCM must then verify the plan based on satellite imagery and ground truthing. If the maps need revision, the NCSCM may revise the maps and send them to the Ministry.
It is unclear if a doubt was raised by the Andaman coastal authority. The methods of ground truthing and rationale for the NCSCM conclusions have also not been made public. In previously published documents, the NCSCM had said parts of the project, including the port, fall under CRZ 1A, specifying that these are areas with “mangroves, a 20 metre mangrove buffer zone, corals and coral reefs, nesting grounds of birds, biosphere reserved area, national park and protected forest.”
Mongabay India wrote to NCSCM acting director, Purvaja Ramachandran, with queries about the NCSCM’s ground truthing exercise. No response was received at the time of publishing.
Meanwhile, 11 companies have responded to an expression of interest floated by the central government for the operation of the transshipment port. These companies include Adani Ports, JSW infrastructure, and Essar Ports, among others. The government hopes to begin building the port early next year and said it plans to invite tenders for the port’s construction.
“Deficiencies” in environmental clearance
Among the other “unanswered deficiencies” pointed out by the NGT last year, were a lack of a mitigation plan for around 4000 coral colonies open to destruction and the fact that the environmental impact assessment for the project only took limited seasonal data into consideration, as opposed to data from two or more seasons.
Of the 20,668 coral colonies that fall under the project area, only 16,150 are proposed to be translocated, while the remaining 4,518 coral colonies are left with no plan. To this, ANIIDCO said the HPC decided the remaining corals “would need to be continuously observed from 15-30 metres of depth to analyse the sedimentation load and depth of sedimentation before any decision on translocation or otherwise is taken regarding them.” It also said there were no requirements in the Environmental Impact Assessment notification for a comprehensive study with data from multiple seasons to determine impacts of a port project. The ICRZ 2019 notification, however, states that in low and medium eroding stretches, comprehensive EIA studies with multi-seasonal data are required.
The Union Environment Ministry, which is the first respondent in the case, has not responded to the review petition and sought more time from the court before filing its reply. The next hearing is scheduled for September 13.
Objections from tribal council
The NCSCM’s recent “conclusion” follows other drastic changes which have enabled clearances for the development project. Galathea Bay Sanctuary, a critical leatherback turtle nesting site where the port will come up, was de-notified in 2021. The eco-sensitive zones around the Galathea and Campbell Bay National Parks were made zero to one kilometer in extent, to make way for the project.
Of the 130.75 square kilometres of forest land being diverted for the project, around 84 square kilometers fall in a tribal reserve that will be de-notified. The island is home to two indigenous tribal groups – the Nicobarese, who have historically occupied the southern coastal regions of the island – and the isolated Shompen, a particularly vulnerable tribal group living in the island’s interiors.
In November 2022, the Tribal Council of Great and Little Nicobar Islands had issued a letter withdrawing its no-objection certificate for the project, after learning that it would destroy the ancestral villages of the Nicobarese, who were relocated after the 2004 tsunami.
In Parliament, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and state Environment Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh have said that tribal interests will be protected. In a reply to a question on August 7, Singh said that tribal groups were duly consulted in August 2022 and no objections were raised during the statutory period. He did not, however, address the withdrawal letter sent by the Council three months after the consultation meeting.
Banner image: Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve. Image by Prasun Goswami via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0].
Credits
