Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram on Monday said that concerns raised by tribal communities in Great Nicobar about a proposed mega infrastructure project on the island were “under examination”, PTI reported.

Oram was responding to a question from a journalist about whether his ministry had looked into complaints about alleged violations of the Forest Rights Act during the implementation of the Great Nicobar project.

“In Parliament too this question was raised in Rajya Sabha, I had answered it,” he added , according to The Indian Express. The minister was referring to a questioned posed by Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale in March.

The Rs 72,000-crore Great Nicobar project involves the construction of a Rs 36,000-crore trans-shipment port in addition to an international airport, a power plant, a township and tourism infrastructure spread over more than 160 square kilometres of land.

When asked further about what the ministry aims to verify, Oram said on Monday: “In a tribal or Schedule area we have to check whether a Gram Sabha was held, what were its decisions and recommendations and whether they were violated. While we look at the conduct of a Gram Sabha, the environmental impact assessment is looked at by another ministry.”

In contrast to his statements on Monday, Oram had claimed during a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on March 12 that he was not aware of any objections from the tribal communities of Great Nicobar.

Oram had then asserted that the project will not have any negative impact on the environment or the tribal communities there, that no one will be displaced and that only a little more than 7 square km of tribal reserve land will be used for the project.

He had also professed ignorance of a video report with the opinions of these two communities put together by anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya as part of an empowered committee constituted in September 2020 by the island administration for assessing the impact of the mega-project.

In March, Gokhale had inquired about the action taken by the tribal affairs ministry in response to a letter from the tribal council of Great Nicobar Island, which withdrew its no-objection certificate for the denotification of tribal reserve land linked to the project.

The tribal council had withdrawn its NOC in November 2022, opposing the denotification of 84.1 square km of tribal reserve and the diversion of 130.75 square km of forest land. It alleged that the decision had been made without the consent of the island’s indigenous communities and that crucial information had been withheld, The Indian Express reported.

Oram’s statements in the Rajya Sabha were in line with the government’s public position on the project but a closer scrutiny of the facts, including his own statements in the recent past, reveals a conflicting picture, Scroll has previously reported.

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