With some sections of the ₹92,000 crore Great Nicobar Island mega-infrastructure project “nearing approval”, members of the Tribal Council in Little and Great Nicobar on Thursday (January 22, 2026) alleged that they are being pressured by the district administration to “surrender our ancestral lands” to make way for the project.
Parts of the project in Galathea Bay, Pemmaya Bay, and Nanjappa Bay require the diversion of forest lands on which the indigenous Nicobarese people had been living before the 2004 tsunami.
In an online briefing to journalists, Tribal Council members said they had been called for a January 7 meeting with Nicobar district administration officials, where they were orally asked to sign a “surrender certificate”, giving up their ancestral tribal lands. Hours after the briefing, they were summoned for another meeting where they were asked if they would give up their claims on a portion of their lands if they were a
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