NEW DELHI: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has asked defence minister Rajnath Singh to rethink the government’s decision against expanding the INS Baaz runway, arguing it would be less ecologically destructive than building a new airport in Great Nicobar.In a letter to Singh on Friday, Ramesh said he first proposed the INS Baaz expansion alternative on May 16. He suggested it as a way to protect the environment while still meeting strategic military objectives in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.But on June 8, anonymous “defence ministry sources” told the media that expanding the runway beyond 4,500 feet would itself cause ecological damage. Ramesh said he found this concern ironic given the scale of destruction planned for the proposed greenfield airport site.
Environmental red flags
Ramesh laid out seven reasons why the proposed airport location at Gandhi Nagar-Shastri Nagar is worse than upgrading the existing naval air station.
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The new site would require leveling two forest-covered hills that rise 115 metres each. It would eat up 225 acres of protected forest and another 130 acres of deemed forest-land that belongs to the Shompen tribal community and that they still use.Around 142 acres of the proposed site fall under ICRZ-1A, the highest protected category under coastal zone rules. That area includes turtle nesting beaches, coral reefs, and nesting grounds of the endangered Nicobar Megapode.The project would also require filling a creek and moving saltwater crocodiles elsewhere. Two villages housing 234 ex-servicemen families sit directly on the proposed site, and those families would be uprooted for the third time in recent years.Ramesh described the area as largely undisturbed, pristine forest bordering an ecologically sensitive coastline. He said no serious or systematic environmental impact assessment has been done for the site.This matters, he argued, because Great Nicobar is designated as both an Important Bird Area and an Endemic Bird Area. It also falls under two major international bird flyways, the Central Asian and the East Asian-Australasian routes, that bring migratory species to the island every year.
Compelled to speak’ after six years
The Congress leader noted that the Galathea Bay airport site was first announced as a dual-purpose facility by the Home Ministry on March 30, 2022. It took the Defence Ministry more than six years to comment on it, and even that was through anonymous briefings.“The disastrous ecological impacts of the Great Nicobar Island Project… have become all-too-evident and are inviting wide-spread concern,” Ramesh wrote. He said this public pressure has forced the ministry to finally address the issue.He copied the letter to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, reminding him that he has written at least four times over the past two years about what he calls the “demonstrably dubious” environmental impact assessment of the entire project.Jairam Ramesh’s letter follows recent Defence Ministry statements defending the Great Nicobar project as strategically vital for India’s maritime interests. Ministry sources dismissed critics as suffering from “geographical illiteracy” and said INS Baaz’s runway would not be part of the new project.The government plans to build an international container transshipment port, a civilian-cum-naval airport, a township and a power plant on the island. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged the project is actually meant to benefit one businessman who wants to build hotels and casinos on ecologically sensitive land.Based on inputs from PTI