Jairam urges Defence Minister to reconsider expansion of INS Baaz

13 JUNE 2026

Congress Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh 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, 2026 assertion that India would invest around ₹13,000 crore in a dual-use airport and runway for civilian and naval operations.
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.

Costs of proposed airport at 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 moving 234 ex-servicemen settler families who, he said, would be displaced for a third time in recent years.
Mr. Ramesh argued that the site had not undergone a serious environmental assessment, despite Great Nicobar being designated as an Important Bird Area and lying on two international migratory routes, the Central Asian and East Asian-Australasian flyways.
He asked the Minister to reconsider rejecting the full INS Baaz expansion, which he said some senior naval officers had themselves recommended.

Shompen

The Shompen are an isolated, semi-nomadic indigenous tribe inhabiting the dense tropical rainforests of Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
Designated as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), they rely on hunting, gathering, and rudimentary horticulture, with an estimated population of approximately 240 individuals