The Great Nicobar project and a Ministry in knots
In an important submission made before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on October 30, 2025, the Union Environment Ministry admitted that the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project will have a significant impact on this biodiversity and forest-rich island located at the extreme south of the Andaman and Nicobar chain (The Hindu, Fully aware of Great Nicobar project’s impact, says Centre, October 31, 2025).
The project that envisages an investment of ₹92,000 crore (₹72,000 crore in 2021) includes a transshipment port, an airport, a power plant and a greenfield tourism project and township. It has seen intense scrutiny and challenges before both the NGT and the Calcutta High Court.
Defending the environmental clearance granted to the project in November 2022, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, admitted before the NGT, in the latest hearing on October 30, that Galathea Bay, the site of the port and also the centre-piece of the project, had over 20,000 live coral colonies, over 50 nesting mounds of the endemic Nicobar Megapode (also a Schedule 1 species as per the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972) and also an active nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle. Ms. Bhati noted that the Ministry was fully aware of the impact of the project and of its duty to undertake mitigation measures, given that it had prescribed conservation measures till 2052.
A finger points to the Environment Ministry
The fundamental questions that arise and which the Ministry would rather side-step is the need in the first place for the conservation and mitigation measures. Presenting the project as fait accompli and mitigation measures as a solution conceals, first, the Ministry’s own complicity in allowing the project and second, the failure of its primary mandate of conservation and protection.
There are at least two important recent developments that underline this fundamental contradiction. First in 2021, the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) denotified the Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary that had been proposed in 1997 precisely for the protection of leatherback turtles, coral colonies, nesting populations of the megapode and important elements of biodiversity such as mangroves and salt water crocodiles. It can only be considered ingenious for the institution that created the wildlife sanctuary and has the statutory responsibility for its protection to first remove this protection, and then say that conservation and mitigation plans are being put in place.
Coastal regulation applies
The second issue is a category of land labelled by Indian law as coastal regulation zone (CRZ)-1A. Coastal areas which have mangroves, corals, turtle nesting beaches, sea grass beds and nesting grounds of birds and/or which are notified as protected areas (wildlife sanctuary and national park) are all included in CRZ-1A. These are areas with maximum protection and are, by implication, out of bounds for large construction projects such as the port in Great Nicobar. Galathea Bay qualifies as CRZ 1A on all counts. This is where the Environment Ministry has tied itself up in multiple knots of its own making.
This became explicit and inescapable when an NGT order of April 2023 noted that the port site had 20,668 coral colonies and “that part of the project is in CRZ-IA area where Port is prohibited”. The NGT then appointed a high-powered committee to look into the matter, which in turn asked the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, to conduct a ground truthing survey.
Based on the survey, the layout provided by the project proponent, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO), and the clarification received from the Andaman and Nicobar Forest Department, the NCSCM concluded that no part of the project area fell under CRZ-1A. A confidential report that the NCSCM then submitted to the high-powered committee became the basis for its claim that the port site was not CRZ-1A. ANIIDCO’s affidavit in the NGT in September 2024 makes this explicit: “The HPC came to the conclusion that in the Report submitted by the NCSCM, it has been determined that construction of [a] port is permissible in CRZ-IB area but not permissible in CRZ-IA. The NCSCM, hence, concluded that no part of the project area is falling under CRZ-1A.”
Not only is the logic absurdly circular, but it is also important to note that neither the NCSCM’s report nor the high-powered committee’s submission to the NGT are in the public domain. The Ministry has repeatedly refused to release these, arguing that parts of the project are defence related even though denotification of the sanctuary and the downgrading to CRZ 1B were done entirely for commercial projects.
Galathea Bay is ecologically important
Importantly, Ms. Bhati’s most recent submission, that Galathea Bay has corals, megapode nests and the beach is used for nesting by leatherback turtles and in fact that the Ministry was well aware of this reality, confirms the continued importance of this location. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Forest Department’s own data shows in fact that the beach at Galathea Bay saw over 600 leatherback nestings in the nesting season of 2024 — one of the highest ever recorded in Great Nicobar.
This being the case, it is not possible that Ms. Bhati and the high-powered committee/NCSCM report are both telling the truth. If Ms. Bhati’s submission and admissions before the NGT are indeed correct, Galathea Bay is still very much CRZ-1A and deserves the highest protection. This raises a serious question about the reports submitted before the NGT that argue otherwise. It is then not just a matter of the Ministry tying itself up in knots (which it surely has). It also raises fundamental issues of scientific rigour and procedural propriety and honesty.
Pankaj Sekhsaria is author and editor of seven books on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands including, most recently, The Great Nicobar Betrayal (The Hindu Group, 2024) and Island on Edge – The Great Nicobar Crisis (2025). The views expressed are personal
Published – November 15, 2025 12:08 am IST
