GS Paper 3
Syllabus: Internal Security
Source: IE
Direction: The article is an instance of the event vs setting debate. It additionally incorporates key factors about Great Nicobar Island and its strategic significance for India.
Context: The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change gave environmental clearance for the bold Rs 72,000 crore growth venture on the strategically vital Great Nicobar Island.
Background:
- The thought of growing Great Nicobar was first proposed within the Nineteen Seventies, and its significance for nationwide safety and the consolidation of the Indian Ocean Region has been emphasised again and again.
- In current years, growing Chinese assertiveness within the Bay of Bengal and the Indo-Pacific has added urgency to this requirement.
About the Great Nicobar Island:
- The Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands are a cluster of about 836 islands within the japanese Bay of Bengal, the 2 teams of that are separated by the 150-km huge Ten Degree Channel – Andaman Islands within the north and the Nicobar Islands to the south.
- Great Nicobar, the southernmost of the A&N Islands, has an space of 910 sq km. Indira Point, the southern tip of Great Nicobar Island is India’s southernmost level and is lower than 150 km from the northernmost island of the Indonesian archipelago.
- The Great Nicobar Island has tropical moist evergreen forests, mountain ranges reaching virtually 650 m above sea stage and coastal plains.
- It is wealthy in biodiversity with some endangered species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The leatherback sea turtle is the island’s flagship species.
- Great Nicobar is house to two nationwide parks (Campbell Bay and Galathea), a biosphere reserve and the Shompen and Nicobarese tribal peoples.
- An estimated 237 Shompen (hunter-gatherers who depend upon forest and marine sources) and 1,094 Nicobarese (relocated after the 2004 tsunami alongside the west coast) now reside in a tribal reserve, a few of that are proposed to be denotified.
- The roughly 8,000 settlers (ex-servicemen from Punjab, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh who had been settled on the island within the Nineteen Seventies) who reside on the island are engaged in agriculture, horticulture, and fishing.
Strategic location of the Island: Great Nicobar is equidistant from Colombo to the southwest and Port Klang and Singapore to the southeast, and is close to the East-West worldwide transport hall, which handles a good portion of the world’s transport commerce.
The proposed tasks:
- A greenfield metropolis
- An International Container Transhipment Terminal (ICTT)
- A greenfield worldwide airport
- An influence plant
- A township for the personnel who will implement the venture
Significance of the tasks:
| Economic | Strategic |
| ● By changing into a serious participant in cargo transhipment, the Island can take part within the regional and international maritime financial system.
● It will promote tourism to the Island. ● Employment alternatives, as over 2.5 lakh direct and oblique jobs are prone to be created on the island. |
● Increasing the presence of the Indian Armed Forces, because the port shall be managed by the Indian Navy, whereas the airport can have twin military-civilian management.
● The authorities’s larger purpose is to leverage the locational benefit of the island for financial and strategic causes. |
Concerns:
- An ecologically vital and fragile area: The lack of tree cowl is not going to solely have an effect on the wildlife on the island, however it’s going to additionally result in elevated runoff and sediment deposits within the ocean, impacting the coral reefs, and
According to the federal government,
- Expediting the venture is of paramount nationwide safety and strategic significance.
- The growth space is barely a small proportion of the realm of the island and its forest cowl, and 15% of the event space itself shall be inexperienced cowl and open areas.
- A conservation plan for the leatherback turtle can be being put in place.
Way forward:
- India has efficiently translocated a coral reef from the Gulf of Mannar to the Gulf of Kutch earlier.
- The Zoological Survey of India is presently within the strategy of assessing how a lot of the reef should be relocated for the venture.
Insta Links:
Developing the sister islands of the Indian Ocean
Mains hyperlinks:
Q. In current years, India has adopted a proactive coverage aimed toward remodeling the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Examine the strategic and financial significance of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands for India. (250 phrases)
Prelims Links:
Andaman and Nicobar Islands are separated from one another by
A. Ten-degree channel
B. Nine-degree channel
C. Eight-degree channel
D. Twelve-degree channel
Answer – A
Islands within the Bay of Bengal are divided into two broad classes – the Andaman within the north and the Nicobar within the south. They are separated by a water physique which is named the Ten-degree channel.
