CHENNAI: A special bench of the National Green Tribunal has temporarily put on hold the union government’s Rs 72,000-crore mega project for ‘holistic development’ of Great Nicobar Island (GNI) situated at the southern end of the Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
Identifying certain deficiencies, the bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel has constituted a high-powered committee to revisit the environment clearance (EC) granted to the project. The committee, which will be led by the secretary of the union environment ministry, has been asked to meet within two weeks and finalise its proceedings within two months. “Till then, further work in pursuance of impugned EC may not proceed except for the work which may not be of irreversible nature,” the bench said.
The tribunal said there are some deficiencies pointed out by petitioners which need to be addressed. For instance, out of 20,668 coral colonies, 16,150 are proposed to be translocated without any mention of a threat to the remaining 4,518 coral colonies. Island Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2019, prohibits the destruction of corals. “Further, data collected for impact assessment is only for one season as against the requirement of three seasons. Also, part of the project is in the CRZ IA area where the port is prohibited. These aspects may call for revisiting the EC by a committee,” the bench said.
Petitions were filed before the NGT challenging the ‘hasty clearances’ given to the project. The project plan has four components --- Rs 35,000 crore transhipment port at Galathea Bay, a dual-use defence-civilian international airport, a power plant, and a township to be built over 30 years on more than 160 sqkm of land, of which 130 sqkm is pristine forestland.
NGT refuses to interfere with forest, environment clearances
The union environment ministry has already given its clearance for one of the single largest forest diversions in recent memory. The NGT, however, has refused to interfere with the environmental or forest clearances saying the project has great significance not only for economic development but also for defence and national security.
Also, the additional solicitor general of India Aishwarya Bhati during the hearing held on April 3 submitted before the tribunal that the master plan of the project has been revised and claimed that Leatherback turtle nesting grounds in Galathea Bay were excluded.
Bhati also agreed that Galathea Bay in Great Nicobar Island, where the port is proposed, is high in biodiversity and has nesting grounds for Leatherback, world’s largest turtle.
For this reason, the areas falling in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ)-1A have been totally excluded in the revised master plan, the ASG said. Now, the big question is if the CRZ-1A areas are excluded can the port be constructed? The question was posed by the NGT bench considering that the entire Galathea Bay was marked as CRZ-1A in the draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) which is available on the Andaman and Nicobar administration official page.
The final CZMP is not in the public domain and it was not produced by the central government before the NGT. During the hearing, the bench questioned the ASG as to how the union environment ministry had issued clearances even before seeing the revised master plan.
“When port construction is prohibited in CRZ-1A areas, how can the clearance be given by the ministry even before ascertaining whether port construction is possible in Galathea Bay or not? You (environment ministry) are rushing through things without seeing the documents,” the bench said.
The bench repeatedly asked about the revised plan for which none of the government counsels had any answers. But, in the order, the tribunal refrained from putting environment clearance in abeyance saying, “Every developmental activity is bound to have some adverse impact on the environment but if the impact can be mitigated and advantages to the society are greater, such projects have to be allowed in the larger public interest.”
Pankaj Sekhsaria, author and researcher on A&N Islands, has ridiculed the NGT order. “The NGT has failed completely to even understand, leave alone acknowledge the scale of the ecological damage this project will cause,” he said. “The order is less about what the NGT is mandated to look at and reads more like the project proponents' justification for going ahead with the project,” he added.