The Great Nicobar Project Plans a 14.2 Million TEU Transshipment Port 40 Nautical Miles From the East-West Shipping Route, an Airport, a 450 MVA Power Plant and a Township, in Three Phases to 2047

The Great Nicobar project, as the government describes it, would build a container transshipment port at Galathea Bay on the southernmost island of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, about 40 nautical miles (74 km) from the East-West international shipping route. A Press Information Bureau (PIB) backgrounder of 1 May 2026 gives the port a capacity of 14.2 million TEU, short for twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard measure of a shipping container. It lists three companions: a greenfield international airport, a 450 MVA gas and solar power plant and a township. The scheme covers 166.10 square kilometres and runs in three phases between 2025 and 2047.

The territory’s government, tribal reserves and economy are set out in the profile of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This article follows the plan, its figures and the arguments around it.

The port at Galathea Bay

The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways leads the port, with Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata, as its nodal agency. The expression of interest that agency issued in January 2023 describes the first of four phases: two breakwaters of about 3 km, a navigation channel 400 metres wide, a turning circle 800 metres across, about 2.3 km of container berths and 125 hectares of reclaimed land for the container yard. That phase was meant to handle about 4 million TEU in 2028, and the full port 16 million TEU in 2058. The plan is a “landlord” port, in which the government builds the common works and a private concessionaire holding a 30 to 50 year concession supplies the cranes and runs the terminal.

The 2026 backgrounder gives 14.2 million TEU and no date. The 2023 documents gave 16 million TEU for 2058.

The cost estimate has changed as the plan matured. A ministry release of 27 January 2023 put the four phases at about Rs 41,000 crore. The ministry said about Rs 44,000 crore on 23 November 2023, the PM GatiShakti Network Planning Group’s release of 22 August 2024 gave Rs 44,313 crore, and the ministry’s 2024 year-end review gave Rs 43,796 crore. The Tribune reported on 2 May 2026, from the official record of the Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee, a total of Rs 48,862 crore. The ministry asked for a viability gap grant of Rs 12,230 crore, which is 25 per cent of that total. The grant is money for a project that would otherwise not pay its own way. The record also gives the ownership split: 55 per cent to an Indian-owned and controlled private entity and 45 per cent to selected major ports.

A PIB release of 13 February 2026 states that Vadhavan Port in Maharashtra and Galathea Bay Port have been notified as Major Ports, the category under the Centre’s administrative control. The 2024 year-end review expects 3,500 workers during construction and, once the port runs, 1,700 direct and 350 indirect jobs.

Why this spot suits a transhipment hub

Transhipment means moving containers from a large ship to smaller feeder ships at a hub port. The ministry says nearly 75 per cent of India’s transhipped cargo is handled at ports outside the country, that Colombo, Singapore and Port Klang handle more than 85 per cent of it, and that Colombo alone takes 45 per cent. Its release of 27 January 2023 says Indian ports could save US$200 to 220 million a year on that cargo. The 2026 backgrounder adds that India’s ports lack deep-water berths for the largest ships.

Galathea Bay’s case rests on two measurements. The bay is about 40 nautical miles from the shipping route and has natural water more than 20 metres deep. The expression of interest puts the island 40 nautical miles from the Malacca Strait shipping channel, which it says carries about 35 per cent of annual global sea trade, and says the port could serve transhipment cargo from India’s east coast ports, Bangladesh and Myanmar because the site is closer to them than Port Klang or Singapore.

The backgrounder also calls the project one of strategic, defence and national importance, meant to strengthen India’s presence in the Andaman Sea and Southeast Asia. The wider maritime outlook is covered in the piece on SAGAR and MAHASAGAR.

The airport, the power plant and the township

The backgrounder says Port Blair’s airport handles about 1.8 million passengers a year. The new airport is expected to handle at least 1 million when it opens and about 10 million a year later on, and the planning documents size it for 4,000 passengers in the peak hour.

The Tribune reported on 8 June 2026, citing unnamed Defence Ministry sources, that the ministry chose a new dual-use airport at Chingen, next to Galathea Bay, over extending the naval airfield INS Baaz at Campbell Bay, 30 km to the north. It gave the cost as Rs 13,000 crore, shared between the civil aviation and defence ministries, with completion expected in five years. Five sites were assessed for terrain, air navigation, tribal populations and wildlife. INS Baaz keeps its runway of almost 4,500 feet.

Diesel generating sets are the main source of electricity across the islands today. The planned plant has a rating of 450 MVA, uses gas and solar, and is designed to keep supplying power if one primary component fails. The township, listed at 16,610 hectares, is meant to meet the residential, commercial and institutional needs of the port-led development.

Three phases, 166.10 square kilometres and the outlay

The backgrounder divides the land into three phases: Phase I, 2025 to 2035, on 72.12 square kilometres; Phase II, 2036 to 2041, on 45.27; and Phase III, 2042 to 2047, on 48.71. The total of 166.10 square kilometres is 35.35 of revenue land and 130.75 of forest.

The PIB documents give a cost for the port but no total for the whole programme. Press reports differ. The Supreme Court Observer values the project at Rs 72,000 crore, and Mongabay India puts it at Rs 81,000 crore.

The clearance and the safeguards the government states

The environment ministry granted environmental clearance on 11 November 2022, according to the shipping ministry. The ministry’s Rajya Sabha reply of 8 August 2024 says the clearance carries 42 specific conditions, and that studies were done by the Zoological Survey of India, the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, the Wildlife Institute of India and the Indian Institute of Science, with IITs and ocean institutes involved in the appraisal. It says the Zoological Survey found the project could proceed with safeguards. Three monitoring committees cover pollution, biodiversity and the welfare of the Shompen and Nicobarese. The backgrounder adds an overarching committee under the islands’ Chief Secretary to coordinate the conditions. After the National Green Tribunal’s order of 3 April 2023, the ministry also formed a High Power Committee.

The backgrounder says the project diverts 130.75 square kilometres of forest, 1.82 per cent of the islands’ forest. That forest holds an estimated 18.65 lakh trees, of which at most 7.11 lakh will be felled, and 65.99 square kilometres is to stay green with no felling. Because the islands are more than 75 per cent forest, compensatory planting is outside them. The FAQ identifies 24,750.93 hectares, about 17,000 in Haryana and 6,320.10 in Madhya Pradesh. The backgrounder gives 97.30 square kilometres for the 48.65 square kilometres of Phase I forest diversion.

For tribal communities, the backgrounder counts about 237 Shompen and 1,094 Nicobarese on the island and says the only habitations in the project area, New Chingen and Rajiv Nagar, will not be relocated. Of the island’s 751.070 square kilometres of tribal reserve, 84.10 overlap the project. The FAQ says 11.032 of those have been revenue land since 1972, 73.07 are being denotified and 76.98 are being notified as reserve, a net gain of 3.912.

Galathea Bay was also a wildlife sanctuary. Down To Earth reported that the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife denotified it at its meeting of 5 January 2021 for the construction and operation of the port. The Kalpavriksh newsletter, summarising the minutes, says the committee asked for a plan to help turtles keep nesting and to keep the Galathea river connected to the sea. It adds that a 1997 notification had covered 11.44 square kilometres but that the final notification had not been issued, and that the law ministry advised that the 1997 notice of intent had lapsed because rights were not settled within two years.

The objections and the official replies

Consent is the first objection. The FAQ says the Ministry of Tribal Affairs gave a no-objection certificate with due adherence to the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The islands’ administration told Parliament that all procedures were followed, and the tribal affairs ministry said Shompen consent came through consultation with the concerned authorities, Mongabay India reports. Tribal chiefs held a press conference on 22 January 2026, the same report says. The Tribal Council’s chairman, Barnabas Manju, said: “We were made to sign the NOC in such a hurry, before we could even read it.” A village captain, Titus Peter, said the Forest Rights Act had not been implemented. The administration had not answered Mongabay’s questions about a 7 January meeting by the time of publication. How that Act gives gram sabhas, the village assemblies, a say over forest land is explained in the piece on the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. On 6 May 2026 a Calcutta High Court bench at Port Blair held maintainable a petition by Meena Gupta, a former civil servant, alleging a breach of that Act. The Additional Solicitor General had argued she lacked standing, and the court rejected that, the Supreme Court Observer reports.

The coastal zone was before the National Green Tribunal’s Kolkata bench, which ruled on 16 February 2026 on applications by Ashish Kothari. It relied on the High Power Committee and on a June 2023 site check by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, which found no part of the project in ICRZ-IA, the coastal category where development is barred. It found the clearance’s safeguards adequate and saw no good ground to interfere, Nicobar Times reports. Mongabay India reports that Kothari put about 7 square kilometres in that zone and that the committee’s report was not made public, on security grounds. The tribunal added that strategic importance does not override the coastal rules and that a violation of conditions would leave the clearance open to challenge. On coral, the Zoological Survey said 16,150 colonies within 15 metres of depth should be translocated, meaning moved, and that 4,518 at 15 to 30 metres need further study. The wider reef record for the islands is in the piece on coral bleaching.

Turtle researchers campaigning in June 2021 warned that the port could end a leatherback nesting site, and the National Marine Turtle Action Plan of 1 February 2021 lists Galathea Bay as an important turtle habitat, Down To Earth reports.

The Tribune also reported that the Department of Expenditure questioned whether the port qualifies for viability gap funding. The ministry told the appraisal committee that the risks include building a large greenfield port and competing with Colombo, Singapore and Port Klang. The committee recommended the project for consideration by the competent authority and decided the ministry may meet the support from its own budget.