Islands & Great Nicobar

India's 1,300-plus islands — the Andamans, Nicobars and Lakshadweep — were long treated as remote outposts, valued mainly for strategic reach. Development stayed minimal for decades. From around 2020, an Island Development Agency and a NITI Aayog masterplan reframed them as engines of the blue economy and forward bases guarding India's sea lanes, with Great Nicobar as the flagship.

The centrepiece is the Great Nicobar Island Development Project (~Rs 72,000 crore): a giant transshipment port at Galathea Bay (up to 16 million containers, near the Malacca Strait), a greenfield international airport, a township and a gas-solar power plant. Elsewhere, undersea fibre now links the Andamans to the mainland, and Lakshadweep is being opened for tourism.

Great Nicobar's logic is geography: it sits beside the Malacca Strait, through which roughly a quarter of world trade passes, and today about 75% of India's transshipment cargo is handled abroad in Colombo or Singapore. A deep-water port there could capture that traffic and give the navy a forward presence. The project is run by the Andaman administration with public and private (PPP) investment.

If built, the Galathea Bay port would open in phases from around 2028, handling ~4 million containers first and up to 16 million eventually — potentially transforming India from a transshipment customer into a hub. It anchors a wider plan to make the islands strategic and economic assets rather than distant dependencies.

This is India's most contested mega-project. It requires clearing over 130 sq km of rainforest (around a million trees) and cuts into reserves of the Shompen — a particularly vulnerable, largely uncontacted tribe — and the Nicobarese, raising serious rights and consent questions. The site is also seismically active and ecologically rich (coral reefs, leatherback turtles, mangroves). The genuine challenge is whether the strategic and economic gains can be reconciled with these environmental and tribal costs — a debate now playing out in expert committees, courts and Parliament.

Great Nicobar project ~Rs 72,000 crore; Galathea Bay port ~Rs 41,000 crore, up to 16 million TEU (Phase 1 ~4 million, ~2028); ~166 sq km of land including ~130 sq km forest diversion; ~75% of India's transshipment cargo currently handled abroad. Sources: NITI Aayog; Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways; environmental clearance documents; PIB.