The Congress slammed the Centre on Friday over a media report claiming that official maps of the Great Nicobar island have been airbrushed to remove corals from the map, and said this is not an ecological update but a bureaucratic rewrite to bypass environmental safeguards.

The opposition party also alleged that when reality stands in the way of corporate ambition, the Narendra Modi government simply redraws it.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared on X a media report, which claimed that between 2020 and 2021, corals vanished from the maps of the Great Nicobar island's coastline, while vital green zones were dramatically reduced in size.

"Another day, another revelation of how the Modi government has bulldozed the Great Nicobar Mega Infra Project through due process. Now we learn that official maps of the island have been airbrushed to remove corals from the map," the former environment minister said on X.

In the 2020 map of Great Nicobar, the island's southern and western coast -- including Galathea Bay, where a proposed international container transshipment terminal is coming up -- were marked as having extensive coral reefs, he said.

"By 2021, the revised government map moved these reefs mid-sea where it is biologically impossible for coral reefs to exist. But the shift in the reef's location on the map conveniently paved the way for the mega-project," Ramesh claimed.

In 2020, the maps showed nearly the entire island as CRZ-IA, he said, adding that this means that the construction of ports is entirely prohibited there.

The 2021 map "magically" no longer shows Galathea Bay as falling under CRZ-IA, the Congress leader said.

This "re-categorisation" allows the development of the area for the project, he added.

"This is not an ecological update, but a bureaucratic rewrite to bypass environmental safeguards. When reality stands in the way of corporate ambition, the Modi government simply redraws it," Ramesh said.

In an article in "The Hindu", Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi had termed the Rs-72,000 crore Great Nicobar Mega Infra Project a "planned misadventure" that threatens the survival of the Shompen and Nicobarese tribes, destroys one of the world's most unique ecosystems and is highly susceptible to natural disasters.

Gandhi had alleged that the project was being pushed through by "making a mockery of all legal and deliberative processes".

In response, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav had written a column in the same newspaper, defending the project as one of strategic, defence and national importance.

He had said the plan is designed to transform Great Nicobar into a major hub of maritime and air connectivity in the Indian Ocean Region, with an international container transhipment terminal, a greenfield international airport, a 450-MVA gas- and solar-based power plant and a township over 16 sq. km.

Ramesh has slammed the project as an "ecological disaster" being "bulldozed" by the Modi government.

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