The Great Nicobar Project: A Mega Development or an Environmental Catastrophe?
Published : Feb 11, 2025 21:22 IST - 3 MINS READ In the past 50 years—and increasingly in the last 10—the word development has assumed a plain and clear meaning. The Great Nicobar Island is being viewed as a similar piece of “beautiful” real estate, which must be developed into a “Macau”, a “Singapore”, even as its trees, creatures, and indigenes must make way for this vision to unfold. As the scale and speed at which forests are felled and lands are transferred to mining and real estate moguls increases, one must pause and ask just what the government’s understanding of development really is. The Brundtland Commission’s 1987 report “Our Common Future” defined sustainable development as one “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. 81,000 crore for Great Nicobar while plain vanilla development work—hospitals, water, sanitation—languishes in Port Blair, just 500 kilometres to its north.
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