Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh wrote to Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Sunday demanded that the report of the NGT-mandated High-Powered Committee (HPC), which was tasked with revisiting the Great Nicobar Project’s environmental clearances, be made public.
Ramesh alleged that the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) conducted for the project fell short of legal requirements.
The former environment minister’s letter comes on the back of a detailed statement issued by the Union government last week, in which it claimed that the ecological impacts of the project had been “comprehensively identified, assessed” and were being managed through a detailed environmental management plan.
Ramesh said, “These reports are an insult to science and make a mockery of the EIA process. All my efforts to locate the ‘comprehensive studies, detailed assessments and robust EIA and EMP’ relied on in the FAQs (issued by government) have failed.”
The Congress leader underscored that the final EIA report in March 2022 was based on a single winter season study spanning December 2020 to February 2021. He noted that the quick primary survey of ecology and biodiversity was conducted in just nine days, and the primary survey of leatherback turtles was conducted in just seven days.
Ramesh also reiterated his earlier demand that the HPC report, which revisited the project’s statutory environmental clearances, be made public. The Centre had repeatedly submitted to the NGT during the hearing of pleas challenging the environmental clearance that the HPC report was confidential.
Ramesh asked Yadav that when the environmental clearance appraisal process, EIA reports, master plan for the township and even the detailed project report of the proposed airport in Nicobar were public, what was the basis to contend that the HPC report was confidential. “In the interests of good governance and informed public debate, please make the HPC report public,” he urged Yadav.
Story continues below this ad
He urged the minister to “pause, reflect, and revisit the project in its present design and detail.”
The NGT’s order from February this year, in which it ruled that it did not see grounds to interfere in the project’s clearances, was based only on the conclusions of the HPC report. The actual report, and discussions of the committee did not form a part of record before the Tribunal, based on plea by the petitioner, Ashish Kothari, to not rely on them.
