NGT approves Great Nicobar project; activists decry move

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has held that adequate environmental safeguards have been provided in the environmental clearance granted to the Great Nicobar Holistic Development project and that there is no good ground for it to interfere in what is a project of “strategic importance”.

- Jayashree Nandi

The clearance paves the way for the ₹281,834.22 crore project that comprises an international container transshipment terminal, an international airport, a power plant and a township, although the petitioners have the option of appealing the tribunal's order in the Supreme Court.

The project requires 166.10 sq km of land, of which 130.75 sq km is forest land and 84.10 sq km is tribal land.

In a 26-page order issued on Monday, NGT said: “We find that adequate safeguards have been provided in the Environmental Clearance (EC) conditions and in the first round of litigation the tribunal had refused to interfere in the EC and remaining issues noted by the tribunal in the first round of litigation have been dealt with by the high-powered committee...”

The order also directed the authorities to ensure “full and strict” compliance with the conditions listed in the EC. The tribunal's reference to the first round is about a 2022 challenge by the Debi Goenka of Conservation Action Trust, in response to which, NGT said it had found no ground to interfere with the forest clearance. Veteran environmentalist, Ashish Kothari had also challenged these clearances separately. And its reference to the high-powered committee is to the one it set up in April 2023 — the committee is headed by the secretary, Union environment ministry — to revisit the EC. At the time, activists asked how a subordinate authority headed by the environment secretary could revisit an EC granted by the same ministry.