Census for resettlement to start making way for the Great Nicobar Project

Great Nicobar Island. File | Photo credit: AFP

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration has announced the start of a resettlement and rehabilitation census in Great Nicobar Island to make way for major infrastructure that is part of the Centre’s ₹92,000 crore container port, airport and tourist district project.

In a public notice issued on Tuesday (June 9, 2026), the Office of the Deputy Commissioner in Campbell Bay announced that the verification of documents for the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) Census will begin on June 10 at the Kamal Basti Recreation Hall.

The notification asked all families affected by major infrastructure under the Great Nicobar Island mega-infrastructure project to keep ready about 24 different types of documents that the enumeration team may require.

Major infrastructure includes the construction of a major road and related infrastructure on Great Nicobar Island as the first steps for the project, which according to the draft master plan has a timeline up to 2050. This draft master plan outlined a vision of transforming the island into a greenfield town with a tourism-based economy while providing defense infrastructure, an airport and an international container transshipment port.

While the island’s Nicobar Tribal Council, anthropologists, environmentalists and opposition leaders have called on the government to reconsider the project, given the threat it poses to the ecology, geography and rights of indigenous communities, the government says the larger idea behind the project was to use the project to strengthen its strategic presence in the region.

Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram recently emphasized the strategic importance of the project by saying that it is meant to be a model for “border infrastructure development” as India cannot leave such sensitive geographies behind. On Monday (June 8, 2026), the Ministry of Defense reiterated the strategic nature of the Great Nicobar project.

The defense ministry’s statement comes days after The Hindu reported that in 2024, the Public Investment Board (PIB), the finance ministry’s body that reviews major public investments, had termed the proposed container terminal port as lacking “strategic objectives”.

Published – 10 Jun 2026 0:10 AM IST