The National Green Tribunal (NGT) cleared the Great Nicobar Island mega-infrastructure project on February 16, 2026. The ₹92,000 crore project will build a transshipment port, an international airport, a township, and a power plant over more than 160 sq. km. of land. Around 130 sq. km. is forest land, home to the Nicobarese and Shompen communities, both Scheduled Tribes. The Shompen are listed as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. The NGT said the project has “strategic importance” and found “no good ground to interfere.” Environmental clearances were challenged in the NGT but have now been dismissed. The challenge to forest clearances is ongoing in the Calcutta High Court, with a final hearing set for the week starting March 30, 2026. The Union Government defended the project, saying it includes conservation and monitoring programmes for the next 30 years. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati said, “We have brought in the best scientific resources available to man this, to take this forward, to carry out research and suggest mitigation, and guide us through the thirty years of this project.” She called the project “a national asset.” However, the project faces strong criticism. Over 70 scholars, ex-bureaucrats, activists, lawyers, and environmentalists wrote an open letter in 2025 urging the Environment Minister to set aside politics and consider the project’s “grave and irreversible negative implications.” Reports in January 2026 said the Tribal Council members from Little and Great Nicobar were allegedly pressured by district authorities to surrender ancestral lands. Key project areas like Galathea Bay, Pemmaya Bay, and Nanjappa Bay involve diverting forest lands inhabited by the indigenous Nicobarese, whose community was affected by the 2004 tsunami.