Great Nicobar project bulldozed through by govt: Jairam Ramesh

Congress Rajya Sabha MP and general-secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday once again alleged that the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project has been bulldozed through by the Modi government through "deception, intimidation, and manipulation".

The former Union environment minister — who has been a vocal critic of the mega project in the past — shared a media report on X which claimed that scientists assessing the project in the Great Nicobar Island worked under a "shadow of institutional coercion" for assessments of the environmental impact of the project.

There was no immediate response from the government to Ramesh's allegations, but in the past it has maintained that environmental and forest clearances granted by the environment ministry adhered to all rules and regulations.

In his post on X, Ramesh said it is increasingly clear that the Great Nicobar project has been "bulldozed" through by this government through "deception, intimidation, and manipulation".

Unusually, the scientists and researchers across the three institutions that conducted the environmental and biodiversity assessments for the project (Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Zoological Survey of India, and Wildlife Institute of India) were made to sign non-disclosure agreements, he alleged.

The Wildlife Institute of India’s (WII) rapid assessment report for the impact of the project on sea turtles barely found any nests of the giant leatherback — except that the assessment did not cover the peak nesting season of December to January, the Congress leader said.

The site of the mega port is in fact the single largest nesting site of the giant leatherback turtle on the island, he said.

The WII used drones to study seagrass beds for the presence of dugongs — notwithstanding that these drones had limited capacity to assess only shallow areas, he claimed.

"At least one faculty member has left the WII because of the pressure to clear the Great Nicobar Project and several former faculty members have spoken out against it," Ramesh claimed.

"I’ve previously raised several key concerns relating to the project in a series of letters exchanged with the Union Environment Minister," he said.

Ramesh has been insisting that the present design of the Great Nicobar project "endangers ecology" in a "needlessly unacceptable manner".

With PTI inputs