Congress Rajya Sabha MP and former Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has written to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, challenging the government's claim that the Great Nicobar Island development project has undergone a "comprehensive and robust" Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and demanding that the High-Powered Committee report be made public.
The Union government had published a frequently asked questions (FAQ) document on May 1 asserting that the project's ecological impacts had been "comprehensively identified, assessed, and are being effectively managed."
In the letter, Jairam Ramesh pointed out that the law mandates comprehensive EIA for port projects in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, requiring data collection across at least two to three seasons to account for seasonal variation. The sector-specific EIA Manual for ports and harbours issued by the Ministry reinforces this requirement.
However, the final EIA report submitted in March 2022 shows the environmental baseline studies were conducted only during a single winter season, between December 2020 and February 2021, the letter said. The ecology and biodiversity survey was a "quick primary survey" conducted over nine days. The leatherback turtle survey lasted seven days. A survey of a 45-kilometre forest stretch was completed in four days, with the EIA itself describing it as a "rapid reconnaissance type of survey”.
"This three month i.e. one season study is at best a Rapid EIA ... But even this claim that it is a Rapid EIA is incorrect," the letter pointed out. Jairam Ramesh said former Environment minister Prakash Javadekar in 2015 had explicitly rejected Gujarat's request to grant coastal clearances based on Rapid EIA studies, stating that single-season data "may not address all the environmental concerns”.
Supporting studies cited in the government's FAQ fare no better under scrutiny, the letter said. The Zoological Survey of India report relies on data collected over just two months. The Wildlife Institute of India's assessment of sea turtle nesting beaches is described in the report itself as a "Rapid Assessment Study" conducted during a six-day visit in April 2021. The project proponent ANIIDCO's own application form lists the terrestrial EIA study period as six days and the marine EIA study period as one month.
"These reports are an insult to science and make a mockery of the EIA process," the letter said.
Jairam Ramesh also raised concerns about transparency in the legal proceedings surrounding the project. The National Green Tribunal, in an April 2023 judgement, had found "unanswered deficiencies" in the environmental clearance and directed the constitution of a High-Powered Committee to re-examine it. However, the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change subsequently claimed before the National Green Tribunal that the HPC's deliberations and report were confidential. A February 2026 NGT judgement relied only on the committee's conclusions, without the full report forming part of the court record.
Calling this claim of confidentiality legally and logically indefensible, Jairam Ramesh said if the original environmental clearance process was in the public domain, there is no basis to treat a court-mandated reconsideration exercise as confidential — particularly when EIA reports, the detailed project report, the township master plan, and even the airport's detailed project report are all publicly available.
He urged Minister Bhupender Yadav to make the HPC report public in the interest of transparency and informed public debate.
Jairam Ramesh, reiterating ecological concerns, said the Great Nicobar Island's biodiversity is globally unique, with new species still being discovered. Stating that security experts have themselves argued that India's strategic needs in the region can be met without the scale of ecological destruction the current project design entails, he urged the Minister to pause and revisit the project.