KOLKATA : A high-powered committee (HPC) formed to scrutinise the environmental clearance (EC) given to the Centre’s ambitious Great Nicobar transshipment port project is likely to give its all-clear to the proposed project, which has been halted since April, multiple senior officials told . On April 3, the Kolkata Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) put a two-month stay on any further work in the EC granted to the project. The Rs 41,000 crore project would be on hold until the NGT-appointed committee scrutinises the green approval granted by the Centre, read the order.

The committee was given two months to scrutinise “unanswered deficiencies” in the EC, which allegedly failed to address severe environmental and regulatory concerns related to the development of the mega port, which the Centre aims at building in a public-private partnership mode.