The mirage of port-led development in Great Nicobar
The facts show that the project’s ‘advantages’ are sweeping claims that downplay its considerable ‘costs’
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‘Geography may be the project’s biggest handicap’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Nicobar port has no ‘strategic goals’, Finance Ministry body said in 2024
That claim is increasingly questionable. A closer look reveals that the project’s supposed advantages are overstated, while its structural flaws and environmental costs are routinely, often wilfully, downplayed. At stake is not just the port’s ecological and commercial viability, but whether the sweeping claims of economic and strategic transformation attached to it are grounded in reality.
The supporters’ logic is, at one level, understandable. India remains heavily dependent on foreign ports, especially Colombo and Singapore, for transshipment. The argument is that a mega port at Galathea Bay (Great Nicobar) would allow India to wrest traffic from foreign hubs and claim a greater share of regional container trade. Yet, the proposition rests on the faulty assumption that creating port capacity automatically attracts traffic. The experience with the Vallarpadam Port in Kerala suggests otherwise. Transshipment hubs flourish not on infrastructure alone but on network connectivity, feeder links, cargo base and carrier loyalty — none of which can be assured by merely building a high-capacity terminal.
Galathea Bay suffers from deep structural limitations. It has no real hinterland — no urban centre, industrial zone, or logistics base to support the port. Every container must be shipped in and out, with no local industry or cargo base to anchor sustained growth. Even as a transshipment hub, the port would depend on feeder services that do not yet exist. Unlike Colombo, which sits within a dense web of short-haul routes linking South Asia, East Africa and Southeast Asia, Nicobar lacks comparable connectivity. Creating such a network would require massive subsidies and long-term state support — a prospect few shipping lines are likely to find commercially credible.
Great Nicobar project being bulldozed through despite c
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