{"id":106074,"date":"2021-05-11T09:46:39","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T04:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=106074"},"modified":"2021-05-11T10:33:40","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T05:03:40","slug":"eac-recommends-the-great-nicobar-development-plan-for-eia-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/eac-recommends-the-great-nicobar-development-plan-for-eia-study\/","title":{"rendered":"EAC Recommends the Great Nicobar Development Plan for EIA Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b>Synopsis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Environment Appraisal Committee has recommended the\u00a0 <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/eac-recommends-the-great-nicobar-development-plan-for-eia-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Great Nicobar Development plan<\/strong><\/a> for grant of terms of reference for EIA studies. The committee also flagged a few critical concerns.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Introduction\u00a0<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Environment Appraisal Committee (EAC) had raised serious concerns about NITI Aayog\u2019s ambitious project for the <strong>Great Nicobar Development plan.<\/strong> However, the EAC has also recommended the plan for a term of reference (TOR) for <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answered-what-is-environment-impact-assessment-discuss-its-main-principles-and-significance-in-various-development-projects\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Environmental Impact Assessment<\/a> (EIA) studies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><strong>About the NITI Aayog&#8217;s <\/strong><strong>Great Nicobar Development plan:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NITI Aayog developed a <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/niti-aayogs-great-nicobar-development-plan-explained-pointwise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8216;Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island at Andaman and Nicobar Islands&#8217;<\/a> plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plan proposal includes construction of the following, <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An international container trans-shipment terminal, <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A greenfield international airport, <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A power plant and a township complex spread over 166 sq. km<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO)<\/strong> will be the nodal agency for the implementation of the Great Nicobar Development plan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Gurugram-based consulting agency, Aecom India Private Limited, prepared the \u2018pre-feasibility report of the Great Nicobar Development plan for NITI Aayog. The report mentioned the implementation of the plan will require an estimated cost of \u20b9 75,000 crores. <\/span><\/p>\n<h5><strong>About the Environment Appraisal Committee:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>A 15 member EAC headed by a <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">marine biologist and former director, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Deepak Apte was formed to study the pre-feasibility report.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the EAC made their decision and uploaded the documents on the MoEFCC\u2019s Parivesh portal.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In that, it recommended the plan for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Apart from that, the committee also raises few concerns with the plan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>What were the concerns of the committee?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The committee held two meetings one in March and the other in April. During that, it raises both technical and practical concerns. There was a delay in the discussion of the March meeting because of the incomplete submission of documents.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The incomplete information includes <\/b>the <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">details of the township, information on seismic and tsunami risks, freshwater requirement details for projects and settlements, etc. Apart from that, the impact on the <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/giant-leatherback-turtle-nesting-sites-threatened-by-andamans-development-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Giant Leatherback turtle<\/a> was also incomplete.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the completion of projects, the expectation are that nearly 6.5 lakh people will live on the island. The current population is only 8,500 on Great Nicobar<b>. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The current total population of the entire island chain is less than 4.5 lakh.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The committee also pointed that there were no details of chopping off the trees.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 130 sq. km. of the project area has some of the finest tropical forests in India. Hence, the numbers of chopped trees could run into millions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The committee asked for details of the corporate environment policy of the implementing agency.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Similarly, the EAC also asks whether the company has an environmental policy, a prescribed standard operating procedure to deal with environmental and forest violations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>AECOM\u2019s pre-feasibility report has proposed 2022-23 for the start of work<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the site. However, <\/span><b>one year is not enough if the government and project proponents follow the EAC\u2019s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> recommendations in letter and spirit.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Galathea Bay<\/strong> of Great Nicobar forms the <strong>centrepiece of the NITI Aayog proposal<\/strong>. The Plan aims to construct a port in Galathea Bay. But, this has a number of issues in the plan.\n<ul>\n<li><b>Firstly, ecological surveys have reported a number of new species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, many restricted to just the Galathea region. These include the critically endangered Nicobar shrew, the Great Nicobar crake, the Nicobar frog etc. <\/span><b>These are not mentioned in AECOM\u2019s pre-feasibility report<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Secondly, <\/strong>the beaches at the mouth of the river Galathea in South Bay are among the most prominent nesting sites of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/giant-leatherback-turtle-nesting-sites-threatened-by-andamans-development-project\/\">Giant leatherback turtles<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><b style=\"font-family: var(--list--font-family); background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Thirdly, the EAC highlighted that the site selection<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the port had been done on technical and financial criteria. <\/span><b style=\"font-family: var(--list--font-family); background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">The environmental aspects were ignored<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fourthly, <\/strong>so the EAC has asked for an<strong> independent\u00a0evaluation<\/strong> for the aptness of the proposed port site <strong>with a specific focus on Leatherback Turtle<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At present, the ANIIDCO is involved in activities such as tourism, trading and infrastructure development for tourism and fisheries. Its annual turnover for 2018-19 was \u20b9 379 crore. But to manage the infrastructure <\/span><b>project valued to cost \u20b975,000 crore is way beyond its capacity.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h5><strong>Action points suggested by the Environment Appraisal Committee:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>More than 100 specific points of action are listed out by the committee<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The important ones include,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The need for an independent assessment of terrestrial and marine biodiversity<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A study on the impact of dredging, recovery and port operations, including oil spills.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analysis of risk-handling capabilities and a disaster management plan.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Details of labour, labour camps and their requirements.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The need for studies of alternative sites for the port with a focus on environmental and ecological impact<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Conducting a hydro-geological study to assess the impact on ground and surface water regimes.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GL18ILO16.1&amp;imageview=0\"><b>The Hindu<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: The Environment Appraisal Committee has recommended the\u00a0 Great Nicobar Development plan for grant of terms of reference for EIA studies. The committee also flagged a few critical concerns. Introduction\u00a0 The Environment Appraisal Committee (EAC) had raised serious concerns about NITI Aayog\u2019s ambitious project for the Great Nicobar Development plan. However, the EAC has also&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/eac-recommends-the-great-nicobar-development-plan-for-eia-study\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">EAC Recommends the Great Nicobar Development Plan for EIA Study<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,8043,1351,1310,9],"tags":[1367,1651],"class_list":["post-106074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-current-affairs-cat","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-public","tag-env_3","tag-env_7","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704722840},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}