Over 130 hectares of tribal reserve to be diverted for Great Nicobar road: Govt

Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh cited information from the local administration and said 12,428 trees are estimated to be felled in the first phase of the road construction

Over 130 hectares under a tribal reserve will be diverted for the Great Nicobar Trunk Infrastructure Road project, the government has told Rajya Sabha. Overall, 238.76 hectares are proposed to be diverted for the arterial road. It includes 39.23 hectares of government, 39.86 hectares of private, 10.62 hectares of deemed forest, and 149.05 hectares of protected forest land.

The road will cut through Great Nicobar Island and connect all the villages on it. (AP/Representative)

Minister of state for environment Kirti Vardhan Singh cited information from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration and said 12,428 trees are estimated to be felled in the first phase of the construction of the arterial road. He was responding to Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker Narrain Dass Gupta’s questions on the forest, tribal reserve, and private land proposed to be diverted for the project, the number of trees proposed to be felled, ecological compensation, etc.

Singh said forest land diversion for non-forest purposes is undertaken as per the Forest Conservation Act, rules, and guidelines thereof. He said it is allowed with conditions of compensatory afforestation and realisation of net present value. Singh said the additional mitigation measures in the form of soil and moisture conservation works, catchment area plan, wildlife management plan, etc, are also stipulated on a case-by-case basis.

The road will cut through Great Nicobar Island and connect all the villages on it. On June 20, HT reported a draft social impact assessment study for the project said that it will lead to large-scale employment, facilitate business, and make “unconnected areas on the route prosper”.

The draft, published on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration’s social welfare directorate website, added that a large number of trees will need to be felled for the road. It said that tribal populations of Shompen and Nicobarese have agreed to land diversion for the road. The draft claimed that the road project would not impact their way of life. Anthropologists have cautioned against the social impact of the project, especially on the tribes.