nice nicobar venture: Great Nicobar mega venture will get environmental nod

The strategically-crucial transfer entails the event of a multi-component mega venture within the Great Nicobar Island.

The Great Nicobar Island is situated on the southernmost a part of the Indian territory. A strategically essential space, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands give India a commanding geostrategic presence within the Bay of Bengal, apart from offering it entry to South and Southeast Asia.

Under the mammoth plan, a military-civil, dual-use airport, worldwide container trans-shipment terminal, a fuel, diesel, and solar-based energy plant, and a township shall be developed.
The venture, which is able to see round 8.5 lakh bushes in pristine rainforests being felled, lack of 12 to twenty hectares of mangrove cowl and appreciable coral translocation, had come beneath hearth from numerous quarters for ecological causes.

The proposed airport shall be a joint military-civil, dual-use airport. It shall be beneath Indian Navy‘s operational management.

“This project is for defence, strategic, national security, and public purposes. In view of this, the portion of deliberation made for the airport component may not be made public,” an earlier word by Home ministry had mentioned.

Around 1,761 inhabitants are prone to be affected by the venture. These embody folks belonging to the indigenous Shompen and Nicobarese communities.

The space is dwelling to uncommon natural world. These embody the leatherback sea turtles, Nicobar megapode (a flightless chook endemic to the Nicobar islands), Nicobar Macaque and saltwater crocodiles.

The venture space falls inside a ten km radius of the Galathea Bay National Park and the Campbell Bay National Park. It, nevertheless, falls exterior the ecologically-sensitive zone notified across the two nationwide parks, a PTI report acknowledged.

Around 10 hectares of coral cowl shall be required to be translocated from the proposed website. As per out there knowledge, roughly 16,150 of the 20,668 coral colonies shall be translocated.

Before the inexperienced nod was accorded to the venture, a scientific evaluation of all related facets was carried out by three premier institutes — Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON).