Great Nicobar project being bulldozed through, alleges Cong

New Delhi: Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project was an “ecological disaster” being “bulldozed” by the Modi government, even though environmental clearances have been challenged in courts.

Ramesh, a former environment minister, said the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation is going ahead with inviting expressions of interest for enumeration, felling, logging and transportation of trees and marking on the ground areas under the project.

“In August 18, 2022, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration, controlled by the Union Home Ministry, certified that all individual and community rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, had been identified, settled, and consent obtained for diversion to the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project.

“On December 18, 2024, he said, this approval was challenged in the Calcutta High Court by Meena Gupta, a retired IAS officer who had been secretary in both the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and had also been a senior official in the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs,” he said in a post on X.

Ramesh said her petition contended that the certification of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration did not follow the Forest Rights Act, 2006, in letter and spirit and, in fact, constituted a very serious breach of the law passed by Parliament in December 2006.

“Thereafter, on February 19, 2025, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, quite strangely, filed an affidavit in the Calcutta High Court submitting that it should be removed from the list of respondents,” the Congress leader said.