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Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on Sunday (September 14, 2025) said the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project was an "ecological disaster" being "bulldozed" through by the Modi government, even though environmental clearances have been challenged in courts.
Mr. Ramesh, a former Environment Minister, said the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation is going ahead with inviting expressions of interest for enumeration, felling, logging and transportation of trees and marking on the ground areas under the project.
Union government seeks ‘factual report’ on forest rights complaint concerning Nicobar project
"In August 18, 2022, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration, controlled by the Union Home Ministry, certified that all individual and community rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, had been identified, settled, and consent obtained for diversion to the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project.
"On December 18, 2024, he said, this approval was challenged in the Calcutta High Court by Meena Gupta, a retired IAS officer who had been secretary in both the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and had also been a senior official in the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs," he said in a post on X.
Mr. Ramesh said her petition contended that the certification of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration did not follow the Forest Rights Act, 2006, in letter and spirit and, in fact, constituted a very serious breach of the law passed by Parliament in December 2006.
"Thereafter, on February 19, 2025, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, quite strangely, filed an affidavit in the Calcutta High Court submitting that it should be removed from the list of respondents," the Congress leader said.
However, on September 8, 2025, he claimed, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs sought a factual report from the Chief Secretary of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on several points raised by the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar Islands regarding the non-compliance by the local administration with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
"The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs seems to be curiously ambivalent even as the challenge in the Calcutta High Court awaits a detailed hearing," Mr. Ramesh said.
Editorial | Nicobar triangle: on the ₹72,000-crore project on Great Nicobar Island
Separately, he claimed, the environmental clearance to the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project is also under challenge in the National Green Tribunal.
"But all this has not stopped the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation from inviting expression of interest from "interested parties for enumeration, felling, logging and transportation of trees and from marking on the ground areas under the project.
"Galathea Bay has also already been declared as a major port. The blatant violations of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, notwithstanding, the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, notwithstanding, the Modi government is bulldozing this ecological disaster of a project through," he said.
Mr. Ramesh said he has raised this issue previously in a series of letters to the Minister for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change.
Confusion over clearances for Great Nicobar project persists
Earlier, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi slammed the project and alleged that the government has made a mockery of legal, deliberative processes under the project.
Terming the Great Nicobar infrastructure project a "planned misadventure," Ms. Gandhi had said it poses an existential danger to the island's indigenous tribal communities and is being insensitively pushed through, making a "mockery of all legal and deliberative processes."
This was countered by Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, who claimed that all clearances have been obtained, and defended the project as necessary for the country's development.
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