New Delhi: The Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project in the Andamans, worth over Rs 80,000 crore, received clearance from a six-member special bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday.
The bench disposed of challenges and concluded that it found “no good ground to interfere,” as there were “adequate safeguards” in the project’s environmental clearance (EC), as reported by The Indian Express.
A high-powered committee, was earlier tasked by the Tribunal to revisit the project’s environmental clearance, the bench noted, pointing to its strategic importance.
It directed “full and strict compliance with the EC conditions” by authorities and regulatory agencies, while disposing of the petitions.
“We have come to the conclusion, that we find that adequate safeguards have been provided in the EC conditions and in the first case 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, and considering the strategic importance of the project, taking into account the other relevant considerations, we do not find any good ground to interfere accordingly OA and MA are disposed off with a direction to authorities and regulatory agencies, full and strict compliance of the EC conditions,” NGT chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava said, reading out the operative part of the order.
The green bench took note of “safeguards provided in the environmental clearance conditions, the strategic importance of the project”, the “view taken in the earlier round of litigations” before arriving at the conclusion.
The Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project, spread over 166 sq km and involving the diversion of 130 sq km of forest land, will include a transhipment port, an integrated township, a civil and military-use airport, and a 450 MVA gas-and solar power-based plant.
The project was accorded environmental clearance in November 2022, and in-principle forest clearance was granted in October 2022.
Two main pleas were filed before the NGT by environmental activist Ashish Kothari. The first alleged violation of the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ) Notification, 2019, and prayed for the exclusion of 700 hectares of the mega project’s components from ICRZ areas.
He argued that 57 hectares of port area, 60 hectares of airport area, 81 hectares of township for defence, and 503 hectares of other township should be excluded from the project plans because they fell within ICRZ areas, where development was prohibited.
Kothari also alleged that the NGT’s 2023 order to revisit the project’s EC was not complied with, as the high-powered committee tasked with that work examined only limited aspects of the project’s environmental impacts, not the entire clearance process.
