Great Nicobar Island Project: Development vs Ecology

The Project

Anchored by NITI Aayog and implemented by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation, the project comprises an international container transhipment terminal at Galathea Bay, a greenfield international airport, a gas-and-solar power plant, and a township — spread over about 166 sq km, of which roughly 130 sq km is forest.

• Strategic logic: Great Nicobar sits about 90 km from Indonesia's Sabang and close to the Malacca Strait, through which a third of global trade passes.
• Economic logic: capture transhipment traffic now handled at Colombo, Singapore and Port Klang.
• Environmental clearance was granted in November 2022; forest clearance involves diversion of about 130 sq km with compensatory afforestation in Haryana.

Ecological and Tribal Concerns

• Galathea Bay is a major nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle; the island hosts the Nicobar megapode, saltwater crocodile and endemic Nicobar long-tailed macaque.
• The project area overlaps the Shompen Tribal Reserve; the Shompen are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group of roughly 250 people with minimal outside contact.
• The island lies in seismic Zone V; the 2004 tsunami subsided parts of it by up to 4.5 metres.
• Critics allege the EIA relied on limited seasonal surveys and that Gram Sabha consent under the Forest Rights Act was inadequately obtained.

Way Forward

The project exemplifies the development–conservation dilemma in an ecologically fragile, strategically vital frontier. A credible path forward requires an independent cumulative impact assessment, legally binding safeguards for the Shompen, turtle-nesting exclusion zones with seasonal construction bans, and transparent disclosure of compensatory afforestation outcomes.