'Specious argument': Congress slams Shah over his Great Nicobar project remarks

New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday slammed as "specious argument” Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks that the Great Nicobar Island Development Project will increase the country's maritime trade multiple times.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh asserted that the project's “devastating ecological and social impacts are beyond doubt”.

The opposition party's attack on the government came a day after over 70 scientists, environmentalists and former bureaucrats urged the government to reconsider the Great Nicobar Island project, claiming that it is "an exploitative commercial proposal" being "wrongly portrayed as a strategic defence project".

"The Union Home Minister (Amit Shah) has unsurprisingly got involved in the debate on the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project saying that it will boost India's maritime trade. As several experts on this issue have identified, this is a specious argument," Ramesh said.

Moreover, the Home Minister completely ignores the project's devastating ecological and social impacts that are beyond doubt, the former environment minister said.

"His colleague, the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, and I have earlier had a detailed exchange on this project," he said.

"From time to time various aspects of the project and how it is being brazenly bulldozed through due process have been revealed in the media. But none of this is being taken note of by the Modi government," Ramesh said.

"Now 70 scholars, environmentalists, foresters, civil society activists, former civil servants, and lawyers have written to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change expressing their deep concern at the grave and irreversible negative impacts of the project," Ramesh said.

They have beseeched him to set aside political considerations and focus on the project's ecological implications that are very much part of the national security calculus, he said.

Hopefully, the minister and the government will find in them to acknowledge these concerns, Ramesh said and shared the letter on X.

Shah on Monday said the Great Nicobar Island Development Project will increase the country's maritime trade multiple times.

The mega infrastructure project, titled Holistic Development of Great Nicobar, involves the construction of a transhipment port, an international airport, a township and a power plant over more than 160 square km of land.

This includes around 130 square km of pristine forest inhabited by the Nicobarese, a Scheduled Tribe (ST), and the Shompens, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), whose population is estimated to be between 200 and 300.

In their detailed letter to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, over 70 scientists, environmentalists and former bureaucrats said it was "disingenuous to label what is essentially a commercial project as a strategic one and invoke national security whenever questions on the project are raised".

They cautioned that the massive diversion of forest land and displacement of indigenous communities due to the project would cause "grave and irreversible" ecological and social damage.

"The only component of the proposed project that was made defence-related, and that too after the public hearing, is the dual-use military-cum-civilian airport," the letter said.

"The remaining 160 square km, including 130.75 square km of rainforest and 2.98 square km of sea, proposed to be reclaimed, is being done for a commercial transhipment port, an associated power plant and a sprawling township," it said.

Refuting the minister's statement that tribal policies had been fully respected, the signatories alleged, "This statement is far from true. The rights accorded to the indigenous communities under the Forest Rights Act have been violated. Even the provisions under the ANPAT Regulation (1956) and the Shompen Policy (2015) have been wholly ignored in the rush to grant clearances." The signatories alleged that the Environmental Appraisal Committee ignored anthropological and ecological objections and that "Galathea wildlife sanctuary was denotified, and three new sanctuaries were notified without any consultation with the Great and Little Nicobar islanders".

They described the move as a "hollow exercise intended solely to satisfy Environmental Clearance conditions for enabling the project".

The letter also claimed a "glaring conflict of interest" in the involvement of government institutes in both preparing and monitoring the environmental management plans.

They urged the environment minister to set aside political considerations, focus on the grave and irreversible negative implications of the proposed project and take serious note of the need to reconsider it.

The signatories include Padma Bhushan Ramachandra Guha, Padma Shri Romulus Whitaker, wildlife biologist Ravi Chellam, nature conservationist Asad Rahmani, scientist Sharachchandra Lele, and former Gujarat PCCF Ashok Kumar Sharma, among others.

In an article in "The Hindu", Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi had termed the Great Nicobar Mega Infra Project a "planned misadventure" that threatens the survival of the Shompen and Nicobarese tribes, destroys one of the world's most unique ecosystems and is highly susceptible to natural disasters.

Gandhi had alleged that the project was being pushed through by "making a mockery of all legal and deliberative processes".

In response, Environment Minister Yadav had written a column in the same newspaper, defending the project as one of strategic, defence and national importance.