Jairam Ramesh presses Centre over Great Nicobar clearances

Key points

• Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has renewed his objections to the Great Nicobar Island Project in a June 3 letter replying to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav’s response of May 27. Ramesh said Mr. Yadav’s reply effectively conceded that the project’s environmental clearance was not based on comprehensive, three-season primary data but on a “single seasonal cycle.” He went further, contending that the underlying institutional studies rested on baseline surveys gathered over only a few weeks, and that historical secondary data held by bodies such as the Zoological Survey of India and the Wildlife Institute of India could not substitute for site-specific primary assessment.
• He also challenged the Minister’s reliance on the Green Tribunal (NGT).
• The April 2023 order, he noted, recorded “unanswered deficiencies” and remanded the clearance for re-examination, while the February 2026 judgment made no finding on data adequacy.
• Mr. Ramesh called it a “perversion of due process” that the...