Environmental Assessments for Great Nicobar Project Demonstrably Inadequate: Ramesh to Bhupender Yadav

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday wrote to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav over the Great Nicobar Island project, flagging the issue of non-transparency and asserting that the environmental impact assessments of different aspects of the venture are "demonstrably inadequate".

Ramesh's latest missive comes in the backdrop of a series of letter exchanges between him and Yadav on the project over the last couple of years.

"Many thanks for your response, howsoever disappointing and unsatisfactory, of June 13, 2026 to my letter of June 3, 2026. I am sorry to say yet again that the environmental impact assessments of different aspects of the Great Nicobar Island Project are demonstrably inadequate and fall woefully short of guidelines set by the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change itself," the former environment minister said in his latest letter to Yadav.

Ramesh pointed out that these had been detailed in his earlier letters to which Yadav had "no worthwhile answer".

"Your position is that conditions made part of the environmental clearance mandate continuous monitoring. In this connection, may I submit the following for your consideration. Six-monthly compliance reports are to be made public. But after March 2024 no such compliance report has been made available. Minutes of the project monitoring committee meetings are being uploaded several months after they have been held," Ramesh said.

The environmental clearance calls for conservation and mitigation plans to be submitted within 15 days after the clearance was granted on November 11, 2022, but these plans also are not publicly available, he said.

These include the plans to be prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology. (SACON), the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) and the Andaman and Nicobar Forest Department (ANFD), Ramesh said.

"Some of these institutions had been asked to submit revised proposals for monitoring and mitigation plans after incorporating suggestions made by the Environmental Appraisal Committee. These plans too are not publicly available," the Congress leader said.

Moreover, it is strange, to say the least, that such plans may have been submitted after appraisal by the committee concerned, raising doubts about their adequacy and reliability, Ramesh argued.

He pointed out that the updated Environment Management Plan based on existing and additional studies is not publicly available.

"There are at least, as far as I have been able to make out, twelve such studies by different institutions. A number of studies are still pending proving that the environmental clearance was granted prematurely and hastily. Some of the mitigation plans, like the large-scale relocation of coral colonies, are clearly unrealistic and almost impossible," Ramesh argued.

The Congress leader said he had earlier requested that the report of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) set up by the National Green Tribunal be made public along with the field survey of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management on which the HPC's dubious conclusion regarding the Coastal Regulation Zone status of the proposed transshipment port was based.

"Finally, everything I am asking for to be made publicly available in no way comes in the way of fulfilling so-called strategic objectives which has now become the rationale for the Great Nicobar Island Project. Serious questions on its environmental impact assessment and legitimate concerns on its grave ecological consequences remain unanswered and unaddressed by your sadly evasive replies," Ramesh said.

"I am simply unable to understand the extraordinary level of non-transparency that is being adopted to hide reports, studies and plans," he said.

The Congress on Wednesday had attacked the government over the project, saying the transshipment port on Galathea Bay is a recipe for ecological havoc and would lead to large-scale destruction of coral colonies.

Ramesh has also written two letters to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh over the project and urged him to reconsider the rejection of the full expansion of the INS Baaz runway.

The Congress leader has also written two letters to Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, urging him to ensure that the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 are both seen to be implemented and are actually implemented in letter and spirit.

The Congress leader, in his letters to Yadav, has highlighted the demonstrably "dubious nature" of the environmental impact assessment of the project in its totality.

In his June 3 letter to Yadav, Ramesh had said the Great Nicobar Island Project as presently conceived is "overwhelmingly a commercial enterprise" and the unique biodiversity of the area is being endangered.

The government is planning to build an international container transshipment port (ICTP), a civilian-cum-naval airport, a township and a power plant under the GNI project.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said the government's argument that the project is about defence and a transshipment port is a "lie", and alleged that it is actually about benefiting one businessman so that he can build hotels and casinos on India's most irreplaceable ecological land.

Gandhi had also released an over 16-minute video earlier this month based on his visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in late April and urged people to sign a petition to tell the government "we choose green over greed".