Rahul Gandhi asks Tribal Affairs Minister to examine alleged FRA violations in Nicobar project

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has written to Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram about alleged Forest Rights Act violations in the forest clearance granted to the ₹72,000 crore Great Nicobar Island mega-infrastructure project.

In August, the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar highlighted these violations in a letter to Mr. Oram, alleging that the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration had made a false representation to the Centre in August 2022, by certifying that processes under the Forest Rights Act had been completed on the Islands and that forest land diversion processes had also been undertaken, as reported by The Hindu last month. The Council, the key representative body of the Nicobarese people, says that no processes under the FRA have even been initiated on the islands.

‘No representation’

Council members had also added that the Gram Sabha meeting where their consent was purportedly taken in August 2022 did not have any representation of the Nicobarese people or Shompen people. Records claim that they were represented by a social welfare organisation directly under the local administration’s control. Months after this consent was purportedly taken, the Tribal Council had written a letter withdrawing the consent as well.

The proposed Great Nicobar Island Project will include a transhipment port, an airport, a power plant, and a township. Local tribespeople had raised several concerns, including the diversion of nearly 13,075 hectares of forest land for the project and its impact on vulnerable groups.

Disregard for dialogue

Awaiting a response from the Tribal Affairs Minister on their complaint, the Tribal Council also wrote to Mr. Gandhi, highlighting the government’s “disregard” for engaging in dialogue with them about the project’s forest clearances. In this letter, Council members noted that the government’s refusal to speak to them was “both painful and unacceptable”.

Attaching these complaints, Mr. Gandhi wrote to Mr. Oram on Wednesday (September 3, 2025), urging him to examine the Council’s concerns. “I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding the violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in the grant of clearances for the Great Nicobar Project… Any development initiative must be grounded in our constitutional values of justice, equality, and respect for human dignity,” the Congress leader wrote, adding that he hoped the government would “ensure adherence to the due process prescribed under the law and implement the FRA in its true spirit”.

Soon after taking charge in 2024, Mr. Oram told The Hindu that his Ministry would look into the issues raised by the Council. Earlier this year, the he said their concerns were “being examined”, without offering further details.

No FRA implementation

The Tribal Council says it was only this year that it was made aware of an August 2022 certificate issued by the Deputy Commissioner of Nicobar, attesting that processes under the FRA had been initiated and completed as per the law.

However, the Tribal Council says that no process under the FRA has ever been initiated on the islands. This is supported by the administration’s monthly reports to the Tribal Affairs Ministry on the implementation of the FRA, where it has claimed that it need not implement the FRA on the islands as the forests there are already protected under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Act of 1956, as reported by The Hindu in 2023.

While the 1956 law gives the administrator of the Islands the authority to de-reserve tribal forest lands unilaterally, the FRA provides a consent mechanism for diverting forest land. At the time, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes had also flagged suspicions about alleged violations of the FRA. The Calcutta High Court is now hearing a petition challenging clearances obtained for the infrastructure project as well.