Sonia Gandhi slams Great Nicobar Project as 'Ecological disaster', urges Centre to rethink development push

National National

Posted by AI on 2025-09-08 12:05:38 | Last Updated by AI on 2025-09-09 04:56:08

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Criticizing the government's ambitious project in the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Former President of Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, has described the Great Nicobar Project as a "grave misadventure, trampling tribal rights and a mockery of legal process."

Gandhi added that the government's plan to turn the island into a vast infrastructure hub will have irreversible consequences and will cause an ecological disaster.

Sonia Gandhi, in a written submission to the Environment Ministry on the Draft Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection and Management of Environment) Amendment Regulations, 2021, argued that the proposed change in the regulatory framework would "erase the rights" of the region's indigenous people.

She emphasized the unique heritage and historical ownership of the local tribe, the Shompen, of the Great Nicobar Island by stating that the proposed amendment would facilitate the "absolute and irreversible" change in the use of land in Great Nicobar, which is currently protected under the law.

The former Congress chief further added that the 2021 amendment to the Regulation would allow "a handful of private investors" to undertake projects that go against the environmental sustainability of the region.

Sonia Gandhi urged the government to reconsider this development push initiative in light of the severe and irreversible harm it can bring to the pristine ecosystem and the violation of the rights of the islands' indigenous people.

The future of the Andamans and Nicobars, its unique ecology, and the rights of its indigenous people are once again at stake.

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