Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday responded to Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav’s letter which said that no objections were raised by the tribal communities against the Great Nicobar project during the “statutory period” for such feedback, flagging several discrepancies with the process followed to accord environmental and forest clearances to the project.
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Ramesh pointed out that though the chairman of the Tribal Council and officers of the Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti (AAJVS) did not raise any objections, as suggested by Yadav in his August 21 letter, an officer of the AAJVS highlighted that the Shompen people in Kokeon area will suffer because of construction activities.
“This statement was not recorded in the proceedings of the meeting of Sub Division Level Committee (SDLC) (constituted to oversee forest rights act 2006) which came to light later in the letter dated 22 November 2022, in which Tribal Council withdrew its consent for the diversion of the forest,” Ramesh said.
Further, Ramesh said that though the environment ministry acknowledges that land is being denotified from a Tribal Reserve for the project, but attempts were being made to underplay the issue by pointing to the additional that is being re-notified and will lead to the addition if 3.912 sq km.
“The tribal reserve is home to the Shompen, who are a particularly vulnerable tribal group. The natural and social ecosystem has been their home for millennia, and largescale, arbitrary changes to the tribal reserve boundaries — even if they result, on net, in a larger geographic area, leave the community ill equipped to adapt to the new reality… The Shompen policy explicitly calls for priority to be given to the “integrity” of the community,” Ramesh said.
In his letter to Ramesh, Yadav said, “The Administration is following the Shompen policy to ensure their integrity… A&N Administration has prepared a budget of ₹201.98 crores for tribal welfare plans including setting up of a special medical unit.”
Ramesh pointed out that though the environment ministry has argued that the empowered committee of the Andaman and Nicobar administration recommended denotification of tribal reserves and the committee comprised of anthropologists such as Professor Viswajit Pandya, a video submitted by Pandya’s team showing members of the Shompen community clearly stating that they are against any disturbances to their forested and riparian habitats and members of the Great Nicobarese community reiterating their demand to return to their ancestral villages, were not entered in the records.
“What was the purpose of consultation by Pandya? Why were his comments, opinions of the Shompen and Great Nicobarese Tribes, not considered by the Committee? Was this merely a window-dressing exercise?” Ramesh asked.
“The National Forest Policy specifically states that “Tropical rain/moist forests, particularly in areas like Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, should be totally safeguarded. The application of the 2/3rd standard for hills and mountain regions is deceptive. The standard that the Ministry should uphold is that forest cover on Andaman and Nicobar should be ‘totally safeguarded,’” Ramesh said.
Ramesh also raised concerns with the process of environment impact assessment and mitigation measures recommended. He said the EIA appears to have been primed to ensure clearance of the project in the form proposed by the NITI Aayog.
For instance, Chapter 5 of the EIA report which describes the alternate sites considered for the project has omitted the least environmentally destructive site, Campbell Bay, and only included the other three sites which are either as or marginally more environmentally sensitive than Galathea Bay. This was pointed out by the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) in its 260th meeting, Ramesh said.
“The Committee notes that the site selection for the port component has been done keeping primarily the technical and financial viability in place. The environmental aspects were not given much weightage while selecting the site,” the EAC had noted.
Ramesh flagged “unscientific and untested mitigation measures, with the conservation and management plan relying largely on translocation, which is successful only in hardy and generalist species.”
The plan to translocate coral reefs is also entirely impractical, since they are an exceptionally complex and diverse ecosystem, he said.
“Ecosystems cannot be shifted artificially. The reports are also insufficient in their scope, with the WII’s report on the conservation and long-term monitoring of sea turtles being entirely silent on the impact of the dredging, piling, land reclamation, and other construction activities for the port and the airport that will affect not only the nesting but feeding and foraging grounds of sea turtles,” Ramesh said.
Yadav in his August 21 letter emphasised that “exemplary mitigation measures” have been incorporated to minimise the environmental impact of the project, “keeping the strategic, national and defence interests” in mind.
Yadav is yet to respond to Ramesh’s latest letter.
