Why Rajnath Singh Is Calling Great Nicobar India's Maritime Lifeline Amid China Concerns

• Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh called the Great Nicobar project strategically vital and will strengthen India's maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific.

•  Singh rejected Jairam Ramesh's suggestion to rely on existing defence facilities.

• Congress has argued the project poses serious ecological risks.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the Rs 81,000 crore Great Nicobar Island Project is a strategic initiative, intended to safeguard India’ national interests in the Indo-Pacific. Singh was responding to Congress MP Jairam Ramesh’s concerns of the environmental impact of the mega project.

Singh said that the project would bolster India’s maritime security, and commercial resilience. He said that the project gives an edge that other military stations do not provide due to its proximity to SLOCs (Sea Lanes of Communication).

What Did Rajnath Singh Say?

Responding to Ramesh’s statement that existing defence facilities are enough to address India’s strategic requirements, Singh said it was an “incomplete appreciation” of the project. “The repeated characterisation of the project as just a costly commercial venture overlooks the strategic realities of the region,” Singh said.

“The project—located in the proximity of vital SLOCs (Sea Lanes of Communication) enhances our maritime domain awareness and adds to our outreach—an advantage that other military stations such as INS Kohassa, INS Utkrosh or AFS Car Nicobar, located further away from SLOCs cannot provide,” he added.

Singh said that earlier, they had examined the possibility of developing INS Baaz as a brownfield project but did not go ahead. He said, “It would have entailed substantial land reclamation and disturbance to the tribal population, flora and fauna”.

Singh said the Galathea Bay was considered to go ahead with the project after strategic, operational, environmental and social factors. He said that all “statutory approvals” were sought ere the project, responding to Ramesh’s claims that the project might be overlooking environmental and tribal concerns of the area.

“The government remains committed to ensuring that critical national security interests are met as per the evolving threat perception dynamics while factoring in the need for sustainable development of national power,” he said.

Why Did Congress Object?

Earlier in the day, Ramesh said he responded to Singh’s letter dated July 17. Ramesh said the project is an ‘ecological disaster’. He said that the project is “most fundamentally a commercial enterprise”.

Ramesh opined that the expansion of INS Baaz would have costed less. He said the government’s claims that the greenfield airport at Galathea Bay would have lesser environmental, social, and operational costs is “demonstrably incorrect and logically contradictory”.

What Is The Great Nicobar project About?

Meanwhile, according to the government, the project seeks to leverage the island's proximity--around 40 nautical miles--to the East-West shipping route and reduce India's dependence on foreign transhipment ports while serving defence and national security objectives.

The project includes a 14.2 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (MTEU) International Container Transhipment Terminal, a Greenfield International Airport with a capacity of 4,000 peak-hour passengers, a 450 MVA gas-solar power plant and a planned township.