Modi Govt. hell-bent on inflicting ecological disaster: Jairam on Great Nicobar project

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 29: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has written to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav over the Great Nicobar Island infrastructure project, alleging the panel tasked to revisit environmental clearances to the project was “biased” and did not carry out any meaningful reassessment.

“It is also a matter of grave concern that while the NGT deliberates on petitions before it, ANIIDCO has already invited expressions of interest for clearing 65 square km of biodiversity-rich forests. I believe the Government of India is hell-bent on inflicting an ecological and humanitarian disaster on our country”, the former Environment Minister said.

In his letter to Yadav, Ramesh also cited media reports stating that the Ministry has filed a counter affidavit to the NGT’s eastern zone bench stating that the clearances granted for the Great Nicobar infrastructure project have not violated the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ) notification, 2019.

“I read news reports about the counter-affidavit filed by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in the National Green Tribunal on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project (GNIDP) on which we have had detailed exchanges earlier. I was shocked that the High-Powered Committee (HPC) constituted by the MoEF&CC in pursuance of the NGT’s directive to review environmental and CRZ clearances did not associate any independent institution or expert when the NGT had given it the flexibility to do so”, he said in his letter.

According to the NGT’s order of April 2023, slightly over 7 square kms of the total project area fell in such a prohibited zone. Now, the MoEF&CC’s counter-affidavit denies the case. What is the basis of the dramatic U-turn and what confidence can be placed in the new set of facts being presented?” Ramesh said in his letter.

Ramesh on August 27 had hit back at the Environment Ministry’s assertion that clearances for the Great Nicobar Island project were granted after careful consideration, saying the Environmental Impact Assessment study for it appears to have been primed to ensure its clearance in the form proposed by the NITI Aayog.

In a 10-page letter to Yadav, Ramesh had said even if one were to accept the strategic and defence importance of the project, it would not preclude any discussion of its impact on the island’s tribal communities.

In response to a letter to Ramesh on August 10, Yadav, on August 21, said that the environmental and forest clearances granted by his Ministry have “withstood judicial scrutiny”.

(PTI)