Centre denies receiving video report recording tribal opposition to Great Nicobar project

The Union government on Wednesday denied receiving a video report submitted by anthropologist Dr Vishvajit Pandya that documented opposition from the indigenous Shompen and Nicobarese communities to the Great Nicobar Island Development Project.

In January, Scroll reported on the Union government’s inaction on Pandya’s report.

Responding to questions by Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale in Parliament, the Union government said on Wednesday it had no record of receiving the report.

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.

Pandya, an anthropology professor at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Communication Technology and founder of the Andaman Nicobar Tribal Research Institute, had submitted the video as part of his work for an empowered committee set up by the administration to assess the project.

The film included interviews with Shompen and Nicobarese communities, as well as mainland settlers. In one excerpt shown at an online discussion, a Shompen man says: “If you want to cut the forest, cut in on the coast. Do not climb our hills.”

Gokhale had asked the Centre about its stand on the video, pointing out that it was prepared at the request of...

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