Nicobar's development signals a loss of balance

Tribal ways of life and a treasure trove of biodiversity are too high a price to pay for Great Nicobar Island's transformation. Mega projects must never escape the scrutiny of reason

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The remote, stunningly beautiful and little understood Great Nicobar Island has been the focus of news reports in recent months, two decades after it made headlines when the 2004 tsunami devastated lives and altered its coastline. This time, it's a man-made wave of development that is drawing attention: specifically, plans under the Great Nicobar Island Development Project, which has an outlay of ₹81,000 crore and was launched in 2021. Infra work is proceeding apace on a trans-shipment port, an international airport, power plants, tourism facilities and a township where hundreds of thousands of people are expected to settle. The project's blueprint covers 160-sq-km, including 130-sq-km of tropical rainforest land that is home to people whose lives are intricately linked to its numerous species of plant and animal life. Environmentalists, climate activists and even novelist Amitav Ghosh have described it as 'ecocide'.