Jairam Ramesh urges Centre to reconsider Great Nicobar airport, backs INS Baaz expansion

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Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh. FIle | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, on Friday (June 12, 2026), wrote to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh urging him to reconsider the rejection of a full runway expansion at INS Baaz on Campbell Bay. He argued that the alternative now being pursued — a greenfield airport at Galathea Bay in Great Nicobar — carries far heavier ecological and social costs than the government has acknowledged.

The letter follows the Defence Ministry’s June 8 assertion that India would invest around ₹13,000 crore in a dual-use airport and runway for civilian and naval operations, to be completed within five years and jointly funded with the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Officials have described the airport, to be operated by the Indian Navy, as a strategic asset that would sharpen maritime domain awareness, logistics support and rapid deployment in the Indo-Pacific. Great Nicobar lies about 40 km from the Six Degree Channel, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Mr. Ramesh’s letter responds to media reports, attributed to Defence Ministry sources, that runway expansion at INS Baaz would be limited because lengthening it beyond 4,500 feet would damage the surrounding environment. He questioned the timing of that concern. “I appreciate the sudden worry for ecological protection,” he wrote, before listing what he said were the greater costs of the Galathea Bay site.

The proposed airport, he wrote, would require cutting two forest-covered hills of 115 metres and clearing around 225 acres of protected forest and 130 acres of deemed forest that form part of the territory of the Shompen tribal community. About 142 acres sit on Island Coastal Regulation Zone-1A land — the most protected category under the 2019 coastal notification — and take in turtle-nesting beaches, corals and breeding grounds of the endangered Nicobar megapode. The project would also involve reclaiming a creek, relocating saltwater crocodiles, and m