Last month, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change gave environmental clearance for the bold Rs 72,000 crore growth undertaking on the strategically essential Great Nicobar Island. The undertaking is to be carried out in three phases over the subsequent 30 years.
The proposal
A “greenfield city” has been proposed, together with an International Container Transhipment Terminal (ICTT), a greenfield worldwide airport, an influence plant, and a township for the personnel who will implement the undertaking.
“The proposed port will permit Great Nicobar to take part within the regional and world maritime financial system by turning into a significant participant in cargo transshipment,’’ the Niti Aayog has mentioned in a report.
The port might be managed by the Indian Navy, whereas the airport can have twin military-civilian capabilities and can cater to tourism as properly. Roads, public transport, water provide and waste administration services, and several other inns have been deliberate to cater to vacationers.
A complete 166.1 sq km alongside the southeastern and southern coasts of the island have been recognized for undertaking alongside a coastal strip of width between 2 km and 4 km. Some 130 sq km of forests have been sanctioned for diversion, and 9.64 lakh timber are more likely to be felled.
Great Nicobar is India’s southernmost level
Development actions are proposed to start within the present monetary yr, and the port is predicted to be commissioned by 2027–28. More than 1 lakh new direct jobs and 1.5 lakh oblique jobs are more likely to be created on the island over the interval of growth.
The Island
Great Nicobar, the southernmost of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has an space of 910 sq km. The Andaman and Nicobar 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 vast Ten Degree Channel. The Andaman Islands mislead the north of the channel, and the Nicobar Islands to the south.
Indira Point on the southern tip of Great Nicobar Island is India’s southernmost level, lower than 150 km from the northernmost island of the Indonesian archipelago. Great Nicobar is dwelling to 2 nationwide parks, a biosphere reserve, and the Shompen and Nicobarese tribal peoples, together with ex-servicemen from Punjab, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh who had been settled on the island within the Seventies.
The Shompen are hunter-gatherers who depend upon forest and marine assets for sustenance. The Nicobarese, who lived alongside the west coast of the island had been principally relocated after the 2004 tsunami. An estimated 237 Shompen and 1,094 Nicobarese people now dwell in a 751 sq km tribal reserve, some 84 sq km of which is proposed to be denotified. The roughly 8,000 settlers who dwell on the island are engaged in agriculture, horticulture, and fishing.
The Great Nicobar Island has tropical moist evergreen forests, mountain ranges reaching virtually 650 m above sea stage, and coastal plains. Fourteen species of mammals, 71 species of birds, 26 species of reptiles, 10 species of amphibians, and 113 species of fish are discovered on the island, a few of that are endangered. The leatherback sea turtle is the island’s flagship species.
The goal
The island has a number of tourism potential, however the authorities’s larger aim is to leverage the locational benefit of the island for financial and strategic causes.
Great Nicobar is equidistant from Colombo to the southwest and Port Klang and Singapore to the southeast, and positioned near the East-West worldwide transport hall, by means of which a really giant a part of the world’s transport commerce passes. The proposed ICTT can probably turn into a hub for cargo ships travelling on this route.
The proposal to develop Great Nicobar was first floated within the Seventies, and its significance for nationwide safety and consolidation of the Indian Ocean Region has been repeatedly underlined. Increasing Chinese assertion within the Bay of Bengal and the Indo-Pacific has added nice urgency to this crucial lately.
The considerations
The proposed large infrastructure growth in an ecologically essential and fragile area, together with the felling of just about 1,000,000 timber, has alarmed many environmentalists. The lack of tree cowl won’t solely have an effect on the natural world on the island, it’ll additionally result in elevated runoff and sediment deposits within the ocean, impacting the coral reefs within the space, they’ve cautioned.
Coral reefs, already underneath risk from warming oceans, are of monumental ecological significance. Environmentalists have additionally flagged the lack of mangroves on the island on account of the event undertaking.
India has efficiently translocated a coral reef from the Gulf of Mannar to the Gulf of Kutch earlier. The Zoological Survey of India is at the moment within the means of assessing how a lot of the reef must be relocated for the undertaking. The authorities has mentioned {that a} conservation plan for the leatherback turtle can also be being put in place.
According to the federal government, expediting the undertaking is of paramount nationwide safety and strategic significance. Officials mentioned that after the grant of stage I clearance on October 27, all elements might be fastidiously weighed earlier than ultimate approval is granted.
The undertaking web site is outdoors the eco-sensitive zones of Campbell Bay and Galathea National Park. The Centre has mentioned that the event space is just a small share of the realm of the island and its forest cowl, and that 15 per cent of the event space itself might be inexperienced cowl and open areas.
