Entry restrictions in Nicobar island where Transshipment terminal is coming up

Entry  into Campbell Bay on the Nicobar islands for where the government is going ahead with the construction of a massive transshipment terminal has been prohibited for non islander Indians for the last few months amidst stiff resistance to the project from the environmental groups. The place was open to tourists from India till about a few months ago

.Several non-islanders and the Delhi based Hindustan times newspaper tried to book online tickets to Campbell Bay on May 25th but failed, with the Directorate General of Shipping website clearly mentioning the provision of booking tickets from Port Blair or Chennai to Campbell Bay was allowed only for islanders. But, tickets from Campbell Bay to Port Blair and Chennai were available for non-islanders also.

Asked why non-islanders were being barred from travelling to Campbell Bay, which is not a tribal area and is usually open to tourists, the Andaman and Nicobar administration did not respond to the queries from the Newspaper. “Non-islanders are not being allowed into the Great Nicobar area, including Campbell Bay. Only those with islander passes, which is proof that they are residents of Campbell Bay, can enter the village or enter Great Nicobar by air or ships,” a member of the elected panchayat (village council) of Great Nicobar said. Campbell Bay is not a tribal area and entry of non-islanders was permitted here before. It’s only being imposed in the past couple of months.

The Rs 72,000 crore development project proposed by Niti Aayog involves building an international container transshipment terminal, an international airport with a capacity to handle 4,000 passengers every day, a township and area development, as well as a 450 MVA gas and solar based-power plant over 16,610 hectares in the island. The project has drawn widespread criticism from former bureaucrats, retired-defense personnel, legal experts, tribal rights activists, parliamentarians, financial analysts, anthropologists, seismologists and ecologists because of the possible wide-ranging impact of the project on tribes and the fragile ecology of the region which is highly vulnerable to seismic hazard.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has constituted a high-powered committee headed by the Secretary, Union Environment ministry to revisit the environmental clearance (EC) granted by the environment ministry to the Great Nicobar Township and area development and other infrastructure projects involving an area of 16,610 hectares in the ecologically fragile islands. Environmentalists have questioned the wisdom of having the secretary of the very ministry that granted EC to review it.