Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on Sunday (September 14, 2025) said that the Nicobar mega infrastructure project is an “ecological disaster” that the Modi government has “bulldozed” despite environmental clearances being challenged in the courts.
Former environment minister Ramesh said the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation continues to call for accounting, felling, logging and transportation of trees and marking them in the project.
Union government seeks ‘factual report’ on Forest Rights complaint over Nicobar project
“On August 18, 2022, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration, which is controlled by the Union Home Ministry, confirmed that all individual and community rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 have been identified, settled and agreed to be diverted for the large Nicobar mega infrastructure project.”
“On December 18, 2024, this approval was challenged in the Calcutta High Court by Meena Gupta, a retired IAS officer who was secretary in both the Union Environment Ministry and Forests and was also a senior official in the Tribal Affairs Ministry,” he said in a post X.
Mr. Ramesh said her petition alleged that the certification by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration did not follow the Forest Rights Act, 2006, in letter and spirit and was in fact a very serious violation of the law passed by Parliament in December 2006.
“Then, on February 19, 2025, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, rather strangely, filed an affidavit in the Calcutta High Court, arguing that it should be removed from the list of respondents,” the Congress leader said.
However, on September 8, 2025, he claimed that the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs sought a factual report from the Chief Secretary of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on several points raised by the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar Islands regarding the non-compliance of the local administration with the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
“The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs seems curiously ambivalent even as the Calcutta High Court challenge awaits a detailed hearing,” said Ramesh.
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Separately, he alleged that the environmental clearance for the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project is also facing a challenge in the National Green Tribunal.
“But all this has not stopped the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation from inviting expressions of interest from” stakeholders for inventory, felling, logging and transportation of trees, as well as marking of project sites.
“Galathea Bay has already been declared a major port. Despite the Modi government bulldozing this ecological disaster of a project, he said, he said that the Forest Rights Act, 2006, despite the Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change and Climate Change has bulldozed this ecological disaster of a project.
Mr. Ramesh said he had previously raised the issue in a series of letters to the Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
Confusion over Great Nicobar project clearance still persists
Earlier, Congress Parliamentary Party President Sonia Gandhi slammed the project and alleged that the government had made a mockery of legal, due process in the project.
Calling the massive Nicobar infrastructure project a “planned failure”, Ms Gandhi had said it posed an existential threat to the island’s indigenous tribal communities and was being pushed insensitively, making a “mockery of all legal and due process”.
This was undertaken by Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, who claimed that all permissions had been obtained and defended the project as necessary for the development of the country.
Published – September 14, 2025 01:12 PM IST
