The story so far: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO) is the project proponent for the NITI Aayog-promoted ₹72,000 crore mega infrastructure project in Great Nicobar, the southernmost island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. The project entails the construction of a trans-shipment port, a greenfield airport, a tourism and township project and a solar and gas based power plant in Great Nicobar. ANIIDCO which has been granted permission for the mega project is a little known quasi-government agency based in Port Blair.
What do we know about ANIIDCO?
ANIIDCO was incorporated on June 28, 1988 under the Companies Act. Its objective is “to develop and commercially exploit natural resources for the balanced and environment friendly development of the territory.” Its main activities, according to its website, include trading of petroleum products, Indian made foreign liquor and milk, managing tourism resorts and infrastructure development for tourism and fisheries. The company’s average annual turnover and profit over the last three financial years has been ₹370 crore and ₹35 crore, respectively. The corporation’s mandate, history, its structure and capabilities raise serious concerns about the process and possible outcomes of making them responsible for such a high profile, high investment and high risk project as the one in Great Nicobar. The 910 sq km island is not just a biodiversity hotspot but also home to indigenous communities with special rights and is also located in one of the most tectonically active zones.
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When the Andaman and Nicobar administration appointed ANIIDCO as project proponent in July 2020, ANIIDCO neither had an environment policy nor an environment cell. It did not even have the human resources needed to oversee, let alone implement and monitor the project it was tasked to implement. It was only in late 2022 more than two years after it was made the project proponent did it start a process for recruiting people with relevant expertise such as urban planners, environmental planners, architects, infrastructure specialists, and legal and financial experts.
In May, 2021, the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) under the Union environment ministry had asked ANIIDCO a number of important questions about its internal environmental governance system. The EAC asked if ANIIDCO had a corporate environment policy approved by its board of directors, an administrative system to ensure compliance with environmental clearance conditions and if there was a prescribed standard operating procedure to deal with environmental and forest violations. ANIIDCO admitted later in August that it did not have an environment policy. The EAC, nevertheless, went ahead and granted environmental clearance to ANIIDCO more than a year later in November 2022.
What are other conflicts of interests?
In 2022, the Mumbai based Conservation Action Trust had filed a petition before the National Green Tribunal challenging the Stage 1 forest clearance granted by the Union Environment Ministry. It had pointed out that at the time forest clearance was granted to ANIIDCO, the corporation’s managing director was the same person who was also the Commissioner cum Secretary (Environment and Forests) of the island.
It is clear, the petition noted, that this is “a case of the project proponent certifying itself.” Further, it added that the responsibility to assess compliance with the Stage I forest clearance conditions vests with the same authority that has a responsibility to ensure compliance with the conditions. This same pattern was repeated when the Chief Secretary of the islands, who is also the chairman of the board of directors of ANIIDCO, was made a key member of the high powered committee set up by the NGT to look into complaints against the project. ANIIDCO was being allowed to evaluate its own actions again. Numerous persons employed at ANIIDCO in various capacities are currently civil servants with the Andaman and Nicobar administration in charge of environmental and tribal welfare issues. We sent questionnaires to both ANIIDCO and the chairman and secretary of the EAC. None responded.
What have past administrators said?
Lt Gen A.K. Singh, Lieutenant Governor of the islands from 2013-16, said that ANIIDCO would be better suited than any other department or organisation in the A&N administration to handle this mega project, though a project of this dimension would require expert agencies from outside the islands to execute it.
Sanat Kaul, chief secretary of the islands in the early 90s, had critiqued ANIIDCO’s tourism operations in a book he wrote in 2015. On the current project, he said “I don’t think ANIIDCO can at all manage a ₹72,000 crore project unless its upgraded vastly with much better quality staff. If the idea of the government is to use ANIIDCO because it is an existing company fully owned by the government, it will need a full revamp from what it was when I was there.”
Pankaj Sekhsaria is an author/editor with his recent work being The Great Nicobar Betrayal. Rishika Pardikar is a freelance environment reporter.
Published - September 05, 2024 08:30 am IST
