Great Nicobar project will displace tribals, threaten survival: Congress

Ramesh pointed out that ecologically, planting trees in Haryana, which needs to be done anyway, will not compensate for felling of multi-species, biodiversity-rich forests in Great Nicobar Island

Flagging "core concerns" over the Great Nicobar Mega Infrastructure Project, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday claimed that it will disrupt and displace the tribal communities and threaten their survival and well-being which would go against all extant regulations, policies, and laws.

The former environment minister said the public debate on the project continues with chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party Sonia Gandhi writing on it on September 8 in a newspaper and Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav responding to it four days later.

"But his response did not address the core concerns being raised - The environmental impact assessment conducted was rushed, incomplete, and flawed," he said on X.

The fact that further impact studies have been mandated after the project has been granted clearance shows up its limitations, he argued.

It is surprising that the assessment began even before terms of reference for it were issued, Ramesh said.

"The project will, without any doubt, disrupt and displace the tribal communities of Great Nicobar and threaten their survival and well-being.This would go against all extant regulations, policies, and laws," the Congress leader said.

Video reports of experts, who have spent their entire professional lives studying the Shompen and the Nicobarese, have been completely ignored, he said.

"The idea that notifying additional areas as tribal reserves will compensate for the areas being de-notified indicates lack of understanding about the needs of the indigenous people as well as the bio-geophysical heterogeneity of Great Nicobar," Ramesh said.

He further pointed out that ecologically, planting trees in Haryana, which needs to be done anyway, will just not compensate for clear-felling of multi-species, biodiversity-rich forests in the Great Nicobar Island.

It is really a bogus equivalence, he added.

"Scientists in public institutions themselves have spoken about being asked to provide reports favourable to the project, some even having to resign due to pressure to provide a clean chit to the project," Ramesh claimed.

Ramesh on Sunday had said the project was an "ecological disaster" being "bulldozed" by the Modi government, even though environmental clearances have been challenged in courts.

Earlier, the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson slammed the project and alleged that the government has made a mockery of legal, deliberative processes under the project.

Terming the Great Nicobar infrastructure project a "planned misadventure", Gandhi had said it poses an existential danger to the island's indigenous tribal communities and is being insensitively pushed through, making a "mockery of all legal and deliberative processes".

This was countered by Environment Minister Yadav, who claimed that all clearances have been obtained, and defended the project as necessary for the country's development.