The Great Nicobar Project: Boon or Bane?
A ₹72,000-crore mega-project promises an Indian Hong Kong. The rainforest, the Shompen, and a fragile coastline disagree.
By Tejas Kathuria · Published May 22, 2026 · 11 min read
On paper, the Great Nicobar Project reads like an act of nation-building: a transshipment port, an international airport, a township, a power plant. In the forests of the southernmost tip of the Andaman & Nicobar archipelago, it reads like an eviction notice.
The island is home to the Shompen — fewer than 300 people, designated as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group — and to one of the densest tropical rainforests in South Asia. The project will clear roughly 130 square kilometres of it.
This is what the official environmental assessment calls 'unavoidable.' This is what the communities along the coast call something else.