Jairam Ramesh flags secrecy, weak green studies in Great Nicobar project

Newdelhi,UPDATED: Jun 19, 2026 14:43 IST

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday wrote to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav over the Great Nicobar Island project, alleging a lack of transparency and saying the environmental impact assessments for different parts of the project are "demonstrably inadequate". In his letter, Ramesh said key reports, studies and mitigation plans linked to the project have not been made public.

The letter is the latest in a series of exchanges between Ramesh and Yadav over the project in the past two years. Ramesh said the minister's June 13, 2026 reply to his June 3, 2026 letter was "disappointing and unsatisfactory" and argued that concerns over the project's environmental assessment and ecological impact remain unanswered.

"Many thanks for your response, howsoever disappointing and unsatisfactory, of June 13, 2026 to my letter of June 3, 2026. I am sorry to say yet again that the environmental impact assessments of different aspects of the Great Nicobar Island Project are demonstrably inadequate and fall woefully short of guidelines set by the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change itself," the former environment minister said in his latest letter. He said these issues had already been detailed in his earlier letters and that Yadav had "no worthwhile answer" to them.

Ramesh said the minister's position was that the conditions attached to the environmental clearance required continuous monitoring, but added that six-monthly compliance reports, which are to be made public, have not been available after March 2024.

He also said minutes of project monitoring committee meetings were being uploaded several months after the meetings were held. According to Ramesh, the environmental clearance required conservation and mitigation plans to be submitted within 15 days of the clearance granted on November 11, 2022, but these plans too are not publicly available.

He said these included plans to be prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India, the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, the Zoological Survey of India, the Botanical Survey of India, the National Institute of Oceanography, the Indian Institute of Forest Management and the Andaman and Nicobar Forest Department.

"Some of these institutions had been asked to submit revised proposals for monitoring and mitigation plans after incorporating suggestions made by the Environmental Appraisal Committee. These plans too are not publicly available," he said.

Ramesh added that it was "strange, to say the least" if such plans had been submitted after appraisal by the committee concerned, and said this raised doubts about their adequacy and reliability.

Ramesh also said the updated Environment Management Plan, based on existing and additional studies, was not in the public domain. "There are at least, as far as I have been able to make out, twelve such studies by different institutions. A number of studies are still pending proving that the environmental clearance was granted prematurely and hastily. Some of the mitigation plans, like the large-scale relocation of coral colonies, are clearly unrealistic and almost impossible," he said.

He added that he had earlier asked for the report of the High-Powered Committee set up by the National Green Tribunal, along with the field survey of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management on which the committee's conclusion on the Coastal Regulation Zone status of the proposed transshipment port was based, to be made public.

"Finally, everything I am asking for to be made publicly available in no way comes in the way of fulfilling so-called strategic objectives which has now become the rationale for the Great Nicobar Island Project. Serious questions on its environmental impact assessment and legitimate concerns on its grave ecological consequences remain unanswered and unaddressed by your sadly evasive replies," Ramesh said.

"I am simply unable to understand the extraordinary level of non-transparency that is being adopted to hide reports, studies and plans," he added.

The Congress had on Wednesday attacked the government over the project, saying the transshipment port at Galathea Bay was a recipe for ecological havoc and would lead to large-scale destruction of coral colonies.

Ramesh has also written two letters to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, urging him to reconsider the rejection of the full expansion of the INS Baaz runway, while maintaining in his letters to Yadav that the project's environmental impact assessment in its entirety was of a "dubious nature".

Under the Great Nicobar Island project, the government plans to build an international container transshipment port, a civilian-cum-naval airport, a township and a power plant.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said the government's claim that the project is about defence and a transshipment port is a "lie" and alleged that it is actually meant to benefit one businessman who wants to build hotels and casinos on ecologically sensitive land.

Earlier this month, Gandhi also released a video of over 16 minutes based on his late-April visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and urged people to sign a petition saying "we choose green over greed".

The latest letter from Ramesh sharpens the Congress's criticism of the Great Nicobar Island project, with the party questioning both the environmental assessment process and the public availability of reports, studies and compliance documents linked to the proposed development.

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