Great Nicobar plan

Great Nicobar is the very last island of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
It is the largest of the Nicobar group of islands, spanning 921 Km2 and is home to about 9000 people.

Nicobar

A large portion of the island is covered by dense forests which are home to a variety of endemic biodiversity including the Nicobar megapode, the Nicobar tree shrew and the Nicobar long-tailed macaque.
Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve: It has two National Parks – Galetea Bay National Park and Campbell Bay National Park.
Indira Point in the Great Nicobar Island is the southernmost point of India’s territory.
It is also home to one of the most vulnerable tribes of India – Shompens. They live in isolation in the forest areas of the island and follow a hunter-gatherer way of living. They engage in barter with different communities – both, the settlers and the Nicobarese.

Galathea National Park is the home to rare and unique species of flora and fauna. The vegetation here consists largely of tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests.
Galathea Bay is an iconic nesting site in India of the Giant Leatherback, the world’s largest marine turtle. (IUCN- Vulnerable, WPA 1972 -Schedule 1)

The Plan includes an international container transshipment terminal, a greenfield international airport, a power plant and a township complex spread over 166 sq. km. (mainly pristine coastal systems and tropical forests), and is estimated to cost ₹75,000 crore.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO) will be the nodal agency to implement this plan.
This plan is said to give strategic benefit, international connectivity and bring job opportunities to local people with economic development in the region.

The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has raised some of the issues regarding the report submitted for the Great Nicobar Development Plan.
This report was a pre-feasibility report, called ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island at Andaman and Nicobar Islands’, prepared for the NITI Aayog by the Gurugram-based consulting agency Aecom India Private Limited.

There was no information in the report regarding the details of the township to be developed over 149 sq. km., a note on seismic and tsunami hazards, freshwater requirement details.
(It is estimated that 6.5 lakh people are envisaged to finally inhabit the island when the present population is only 8,500; the current total population of the entire island chain is less than 4.5 lakh).
There are no details of the impact on the Giant Leatherback turtle and its nesting pattern on Galatea Bay beach.
The site selection for the port on the Galatea Bay had been done mainly on technical and financial criteria, ignoring the environmental aspects.
ANIIDCO has been tasked as nodal agency, but it was found that this corporation has no corporate environment policy which is a standard protocol.

Along with raising concerns the committee recommended it for grant of terms of reference (TOR) for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies, which in the first instance will include baseline studies over three months. Read more about EIA on https://officerspulse.com/environment-impact-assessment/
The purpose of TOR is to enable the project proponent for planning and designing EIA. The TORs address sector specific issues relating to environmental impact assessment studies.It comprises four stages viz. Stage (1) Screening; Stage (2) Scoping; Stage (3) Public Consultation; and Stage (4) Appraisal.
It has also asked for more than 100 recommendations to incorporate in EIA studies.

http://natureconservation.in/galathea-national-park-complete-detail-updated/
https://www.go2andaman.com/islands/great-nicobar/
http://environmentclearance.nic.in/writereaddata/Online/TOR/06_Nov_2017_114205950TQWYHGYJTORFORECBYNAVNEET.pdf

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