Great Nicobar Island Project: Jairam Ramesh confronts Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav again on green nod

📌 Summary:

• Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav admitted that the environmental clearance for the Great Nicobar Island (GNI) Project was NOT based on a comprehensive 3-season EIA — only a single seasonal cycle integrated with historical datasets

• Ramesh demanded fresh, comprehensive EIA studies covering all three seasons to account for seasonal ecological variations

• He alleged the Centre, faced with "incontrovertible evidence of hugely adverse ecological impacts," is now shifting justification to the project's "strategic rationale"

• About the project: ₹72,000-crore "holistic development" plan including a transhipment port, international airport, township and 450 MW power plant on Great Nicobar Island

• Concerns flagged earlier: clearing of ~130 sq km of pristine rainforest (~8.5 lakh trees), threat to leatherback turtle nesting beaches and Galathea Bay (a CRZ-IA area de-notified for port), risk to indigenous Shompen (PVTG) and Nicobarese tribes, seismic vulnerability (2004 tsunami epicentre nearby)

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 — Environment (EIA process, conservation vs. development trade-offs, biodiversity hotspots, CRZ); GS2 — Tribal rights (FRA, Shompen PVTG); GS3 — Infrastructure (strategic port projects).

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Great Nicobar is the southernmost island of the Andaman & Nicobar archipelago; near the Strait of Malacca
• Shompen: Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG); about 200-300 in number
• Galathea National Park & Campbell Bay National Park lie on Great Nicobar
• EIA Notification 2006 is the governing framework; CRZ Notification 2019 governs coastal zones
• Andaman & Nicobar is part of the Indo-Burma + Sundaland biodiversity hotspots

🔑 Key Term: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) — a regulatory process to evaluate the likely environmental consequences of a proposed project before it is approved; comprehensive EIAs typically require baseline data across multiple seasons to capture ecological variability.