The Environment Ministry has approved an exemption to the laws governing the regulation of coastal zones and has paved the way for gas-powered plants to be set up at Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The Island Coastal Zone Regulation (ICRZ), 2019, limits infrastructure development on vulnerable coastal stretches.
In the aftermath of a proposal from the Andaman and Nicobar Coastal Zone Management Authority (ANCZMA), an expert body of the Ministry, called the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA), recommended in August, 2021 that it was necessary to provide an “enabling provision in the ICRZ notification” to meet the energy requirement of the islanders while reducing the dependency on highly polluting sources such as conventional Diesel Generator (DG) sets.
