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New Delhi: Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav while responding to Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s letters on the contentious Great Nicobar Island project has said that while the primary field data was collected over a single season, the data had been integrated with historical data sets before approval. 

“Although primary field data for the project was collected over a single seasonal cycle, the analysis integrated freshly collected data with long-term historical datasets available with the institutions, thereby ensuring that the environmental assessment and environmental management plan were scientifically robust, comprehensive and based on site-specific ecological understanding,” Yadav wrote in a letter to Ramesh on May 27.

Yadav also mentioned two National Green Tribunal orders from 2023 and 2026 where the environmental body did not interfere with the clearances granted to the mega project.

Last month, Ramesh had written to Yadav calling the environment impact assessment (EIA) done ahead of the Great Nicobar project a “mockery of the EIA process” and an “insult to science”.

In his letter on May 10, Ramesh........

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