Nicobar Mega Project NGT Hearing- Latest Updates and Status

This News already takes the Form of a critical Examination of the Nicobar Mega Project, which is now under new scrutiny of environmental violations, Indigenous uprooting, and infiltrations against the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ), and reintroduces into the visible Framework of the National Green Tribunal.

The Nicobar Mega Project, a multi-billion-rupee infrastructure project suggested to be located on Great Nicobar Island, has become a centre of interest in the development discourse and environmental jurisprudence in India today. As a strategic maritime and logistics hub, the project incorporates an international container trans-shipment terminal, a multi-use airport, a township, and a power plant that will work towards achieving the objective of improving the geopolitical positioning of India within the Indo-Pacific region. Nevertheless, its location in an ecologically vulnerable and tribe-based territory has provoked a major legal as well as ethical commentary. Circumstantial evidence of environmental politicking has taken a new direction; the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has resumed tribunal proceedings to inquire into perceptions of violation of the ICRZ norms and procedural failures in environmental clearances. The location of the project in areas where the ICRZ-1A building is not allowable and its possible impact on the species that are endangered and on native populations imply the issue with the sufficiency of environmental impact analyses and the clarity of the decision-making process. This Article critically discusses the outline of the Nicobar Mega Project, environmental and socio-cultural interests that the project entailed, and the legal issues in implementing such a project. In a systematic investigation, the article aims to shed light on the contradictions between the goals of development and eco-integrity, with an approach that provides information about the different functions of the judicial review on the strategy of preserving the coastline and tribal landscape of India.

Nicobar Mega Project Overview

The Nicobar Mega Project is one of the most acute infrastructure projects in India in recent history, and the project aims to make Great Nicobar Island a strategic and economic powerhouse in the Indo-Pacific region.

Geopolitical Imperatives and Strategic Vision
At the heart of the project lies the desire of India to increase its sea activity in the regions adjacent to the Malacca Strait, which serves as the main shipping route around the world. The project is in line with national policies such as the SAGAR doctrine and the Act East Policy, hence enhancing the ability of India to monitor trade routes and offset local geopolitical changes. Additional strategic significance of the island lies in the fact that the proximity of the island is with locations like Sabang (Indonesia) and Coco Island (Myanmar).

Components and Development of Infrastructure
The 81,000-crore plan includes 4 main parts of the plan:

1. An International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT) with a capacity of 14.2million TEUs;
2. an unrestricted designed double-use green field airport to use in civilian and military operations;
3. a gas-solar hybrid power plant with 450MVA capacity to ensure a sustainable power supply and
4. An integrated township in the area of 16,610 hectares to house the workforce and industrial operations.

The process of development consists of three phases (2025-2047), which allows planning every phase using the spontaneous method and reducing ecological stress in steps.

Economical and Logistical Reasoning
It is estimated that the project would reduce the dependency of foreign trans-shipment ports like Colombo and Singapore in India, with the possibility of earmarking by USD 200-300 million a year in shipping costs. It will also create thousands of job opportunities, trigger eco-tourism, and reinforce the regional trade. The ICTT is projected to play a central role in furthering the objectives of the blue economy of India in the build-up, as affirmed by the Maritime India Vision 2030.

Sustainability Process and Problems
Despite the fact that the project states that it adheres to the requirements of environmental protection as stipulated by the EIA Notification 2006 and the tribal welfare requirements, as established in the Shompen Policy 2015, some issues still remain. Distribution of the forest lands, potential disruption of the endemic species like the leatherback turtle, as well as risks to the tribal peoples of the Shompen and the Nicobarese, have become the focus of out-settings. Moreover, the vulnerability of the island to earthquakes and harsh climatic conditions defines why a resilient infrastructure should be planned.

Environmental and Tribal Sensitivities

Despite being packaged as strategic and economic requirements, the Nicobar Mega Project borders ecologically sensitive areas and the customary lifeof struggling tribal groups, which has posed major challenges of ethics and the law.

Risks of Ecological Fragility and Biodiversity
The Great Nicobar Island is a component of a UNESCO biosphere reserve and contains tropical rainforests, coral reefs, and mangrove lands. The construction is threatening to invade Galathea Bay, which is a vital nesting ground for the endangered leatherback turtle. The biodiversity of the island is made up of over 1,800 known species of flora and fauna, with most of them being endemic to the region. Coupled with the proposed mass forest destruction of over 130 km² of untouched woodland, this menace of irreparable ecological damage is a danger. Further, the seismic vulnerability of the area is experienced and falls within seismic Zone V, which increases the likelihood of catastrophic events.

Dislocation and Cultural erosion of Tribal Society
Nicobarese and Shompen tribes are present in the project zone, and the latter is considered to be one of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG). The Shompen people have subsistence heavily dependent on forests and have very little interaction with the outside groups. The land occupied by the project endangers to compound onto the territory of the tribal reserves and provoke the breaching of the native population and disintegration of the cultures.

Procedural Violations and Legal Safeguards
Article 338-A of the Constitution, Forest Rights Act (2006), and Shompen Policy (2015) mandates prior Informed consents and protection of tribal lands. However, it is reported that some bypasses had been experienced at the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) when clearances had to be made. The objections that had been raised by the Tribal Council at the outset were claimed to have been overruled because of political influence, and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was done without sufficient background information. Such operational oversights discredit provisions of the constitution and the law.

Organizational Transparency and Citizen Action
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the National Green Tribunal (NGT), in particular, are the institutions that have been put in the light for facilitating and not thoroughly examining the clearances of the project. The activities of civil societies, environmentalists, as well as ex-policymakers have expressed issues about reduced scientific rigor and regulatory weakening. Repetitive hearings of these cases by the NGT indicate the increasing need for accountability among institutions and the change of paradigms of development, which exclude environmental and tribal interests.

Purported Offenses against the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ)

The Nicobar Mega Project has garnered a major focus by the legal fraternity on violations of the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ) rules, mainly in ecologically sensitive zones marked as no-development zones by the national coast law.

ICRZ Classification and Legalizing
The Island Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2019, governs the allowable activities within the coastline in the islands of India. It divides coastal long stretches into areas that are ecological sensitive, where ICRZ-1A represents the most secure area. Port construction, airports, and townships cannot be constructed in any of these zones because they are ecologically sensitive. The proposed development, however, in the Nicobar project is on an area of 7.07sq KM of ICRZ-1A under which a trans-shipment port, an airport, and a township would be deployed.

Violations and Project Footprint
The port alone, according to submissions to the National Green Tribunal (NGT), covers 0.57 sq.km area, with other reclamation and airport, and township sections also falling in the ICRZ-1A area. These practices are against the express limitations of the notification. The counsel presented to the Court of Appeals argued that the Environment Ministry gave clearance on the basis of a shortened Terms of Reference, in this way by-passing exhaustive survey on the ecological conditions and overriding the statutory status of the zone.

Procedural irregularities and institutional oversight
Critics have highlighted procedural flaws in the clearance process, such as a lack of a complete public hearing, as well as the absence of major stakeholders like the National Commission of Scheduled Tribes. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is claimed to have been based on a lack of the necessary level of baseline data, and the high-powered committee that was constituted to revise the project has been reported to work without much transparency. These anomalies cast some doubt on the watering down of regulatory protection and the elimination of environmental law.

Judicial Review
The NGT reinitiated hearings with a new bench of six members to examine the legality of the clearances and compliance of the project with the ICRZ standards. The tribunal has asked the Centre to explain how 7.07 sq. km of the ICRZ 1A land would be developed. According to petitioners, the two are not mutually exclusive since national security can be achieved without ecological destruction, and they should seek alternative sites that are not within the no-go zone areas.

Fresh Hearings of the National Green Tribunal

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has reinstated proceedings into the Nicobar Mega Project due to the alleged breach of the environmental law and lapse of office procedure in granting clearances regarding the project, in relation to zones of the ICRZ-1A.

Reconstitution of Tribunal and review
The NGT resumed its hearings in September 2025, under a six-member new bench and chaired by Justice Prakash Shrivastava. Two main petitions are processed; one demanding the legality of environmental clearances given to the 81,000-crore Nicobar Mega Project, and the other one presenting whether the references to the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ) Notification, 2019 were followed throughout the project. The reconstitution was done after retiring two judicial members and required the re-examination of pending issues.

Legal Arguments and infringement on coastal areas
Since the petitioners are led by the environmental activist Ashish Kothari, they argue that an area of the project about 7.07sq km is located within the ICRZ-1A category, which excludes any development. Certain elements, i.e., the trans-shipment port (0.57 km²), the airport (0.60 km²), and the township (5.03 km²), fall within such no-development areas. The counsel representing the appellant pointed out that the Environment Ministry used a cut-short Terms of Reference in its review of environmental clearance, so as to avoid the tedious ecological review.

Observations by tribunal and the Government Response
The bench, through the hearings, ordered the Centre to justify how the project would not causedestruction to the area within the ecologically sensitive zone of 7.07 sq. km. In next hearing,which is on October 29, the Solicitor General will appear in court to present an argument on behalf of the GoI. The Centre has insisted that there was no breach of the law and that coral colonies around the Galathea Bay will be relocated by a classified, high-powered committee. But the denial of publication of such a report has cast doubt on any sense of transparency and overextension of its strategy.

Environmental Governance Implications
The new hearing highlights the tension that is likely to exist between strategic infrastructural development and ecological jurisprudence. The precedent of the case is that it must tend to solve future matters with respect to ecological protection in the spirit of national security and economic necessity. It is also an expressive indicator of the increased presence of civil society in asking the actions of regulatory bodies, and in the development, being not conducted at the expense of the ecological and tribal integrity.

Conclusion

The Nicobar Mega Project is an exemple of the complex nexus of strategy development, environmental conservation, and native rights. Although proponents argueon the grounds of national security, along with economic necessity, to put the projects in areas that are ecologically vital and inhabited by tribally based populations, this raises some pertinent questions related to the issue of regulatory adherence and ethical governance. Violation of the Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ) standards, flaws in the procedures of granting environmental clearance, and exclusion of tribal stakeholders, among others, all contribute to the urgency to enforce high-level institutional responsibility. The hearings by the National Green Tribunal will offer a new platform in which the decision on the project can be reconsidered based on legal and environmental grounds. In the context of the developmental path that India enacts in the Indo-Pacific, it should bring into alignment ambitions of infrastructural development, constitutional provisions, and ecological protection. The future of the Great Nicobar Island will not only be determined by the result of this particular case but also provide a precedent in terms of resolving the strategic interests with the concept of inclusionary and sustainable governance in the areas of the ecologically delicate environment.