India’s proposed Greenfield International Airport on Great Nicobar Island has emerged as one of the most important components of the government’s ambitious Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island project, with its strategic location near the Malacca Strait adding considerable economic, logistical and military significance.
The airport is being developed as a dual-use military-civil aviation facility intended to strengthen connectivity to the strategically important island, support the proposed International Container Transshipment Port (ICTP), and provide essential infrastructure for civilian transportation, tourism, emergency response and military operations.
As of late October 2026, the broader Great Nicobar development project continues to advance through tendering processes and regulatory clearances. Its four principal components are the International Container Transshipment Port at Galathea Bay, a Greenfield International Airport, a power plant and an integrated township.
However, the project continues to face legal and political scrutiny, particularly over its environmental implications, land use and the scale of infrastructure development planned for the ecologically sensitive island.
One of the most debated aspects of the airport proposal concerns the government’s decision to construct a new Greenfield facility rather than expand the existing runway at INS Baaz, the Indian Navy’s air station on Great Nicobar.
Critics have questioned whether constructing an entirely new airport involves unnecessary expenditure when an existing naval aviation facility could potentially be upgraded.
The argument has generated considerable public debate. However, an examination of the operational, geographical, environmental and technical constraints suggests that extending INS Baaz’s runway would have presented substantial challenges.
The proposed Greenfield Airport is planned with a 3,000-metre runway in its first phase and an initial capacity of 4,000 peak-hour passengers (PHP).
Its dual-use character is central to the government’s infrastructure strategy for Great Nicobar. The facility is expected to serve commercial aviation while also supporting military requirements in an area of growing strategic importance.
Great Nicobar occupies a significant geographical position in the eastern Indian Ocean, close to the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s busiest maritime passages connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans.
The proposed transshipment port at Galathea Bay is intended to position the island as an important maritime logistics and shipping hub. However, the effectiveness of such a port would depend on the availability of supporting infrastructure, including reliable air connectivity.
Without an appropriately designed airport, the proposed port and associated economic activities could face significant logistical limitations.
The airport is therefore envisaged as more than a civilian passenger facility. It would provide an air bridge for transporting personnel, equipment and essential supplies, particularly during emergencies or periods when maritime connectivity is disrupted.
It would also support medical evacuations, tourism development, commercial transportation and the rapid movement of military personnel and equipment.
For India’s strategic planning in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the ability to move personnel and resources quickly is particularly important. A dual-use airport could strengthen the country’s operational flexibility while improving connectivity for the island’s civilian population.
The proposal to expand INS Baaz has been among the most prominent alternatives raised by critics of the Greenfield Airport.
At first glance, upgrading an existing naval air station might appear more economical than constructing an entirely new airport. The approach could potentially reduce infrastructure duplication and limit the need for additional land acquisition.
However, INS Baaz is a relatively small naval air station with an existing runway of approximately 1,000 metres.
Its present configuration is suitable primarily for smaller aircraft, including Dornier turboprop aircraft. It is not designed to accommodate commercial passenger aircraft or most military aircraft requiring longer runways.
The facility also has significant geographical and infrastructure limitations, with limited available land and several facilities operating from temporary structures.
According to the project justification, expanding INS Baaz was examined as the first option. An independent professional organisation specialising in airport construction assessed the proposal in consultation with relevant stakeholders.
The assessment reportedly identified several technical, environmental and social constraints that made runway expansion unfeasible.
The first major obstacle involves the geographical configuration of the existing runway.
Extending the runway would require cutting into a hill on one side. The hill falls within the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Obstacle Limitation Surfaces (OLS), which establish restrictions on structures and terrain around airports to maintain aviation safety.
Removing or substantially modifying the hill would create serious environmental consequences. More importantly, the hill is traversed by the island’s critical East-West Road.
Any major disruption to this route could compromise connectivity across Great Nicobar, creating an additional infrastructure problem while attempting to improve aviation access.
On the opposite side of the runway lies the sea. Extending the runway in that direction would require extensive land reclamation to meet mandatory aviation safety requirements.
Such reclamation would potentially damage the fragile marine ecosystem surrounding the island, raising concerns about the environmental cost of modifying the existing naval air station.
The third constraint concerns Magar Nallah, a perennial freshwater stream considered ecologically important to Great Nicobar.
The watercourse is not merely a freshwater resource. It forms an ecological corridor connecting the island’s forested interior with its coastal environment.
Magar Nallah supports a variety of aquatic and semi-aquatic fauna and helps maintain ecological connections between forests, wetlands and the Andaman Sea.
Any substantial infrastructure development affecting this watercourse could disrupt the interconnected ecosystems that sustain the island’s biodiversity.
The fourth challenge is the concentration of the island’s population and existing infrastructure around INS Baaz.
According to the project’s assessment, nearly 80 per cent of Great Nicobar’s population lives in the area surrounding the naval air station.
The region contains extensive public and private infrastructure, including residential properties and other community facilities.
Expanding the runway would require compliance with ICAO-mandated landing and take-off safety requirements. This would necessitate removing or relocating a considerable amount of existing infrastructure within the relevant safety zones.
Such displacement could cause substantial disruption to local communities and impose considerable social and economic costs.
The fifth obstacle relates to operational limitations arising from the runway’s geographical orientation.
Restrictions on approaches from the southern direction would leave the extended runway accessible primarily from the north-east.
Consequently, aircraft operations would depend heavily on wind conditions. According to the assessment presented for the project, the runway would be operationally available mainly when winds came from the third quadrant or during calm conditions.
This would significantly restrict its operational availability, potentially limiting usable conditions to approximately 50 per cent of the time.
For an airport expected to support commercial passenger operations, emergency services and military logistics, such limitations would undermine its effectiveness.
Most of the additional land required for expanding INS Baaz and developing the associated airport infrastructure would be privately owned.
Acquiring this land would involve administrative, legal and compensation-related complications. More significantly, it would require displacing a substantial population.
Given the existing concentration of settlements and infrastructure around the naval air station, the social consequences of such an expansion were considered highly undesirable.
Taken together, these six constraints led planners to abandon the proposal to extend INS Baaz and consider an alternative location for the Greenfield Airport.
The proposed Greenfield Airport site offers several advantages that were reportedly unavailable around INS Baaz.
The selected location largely comprises government-owned revenue land, with relatively few families living in non-permanent dwellings.
It also contains extensive barren tracts, reducing the immediate challenges associated with relocating established settlements and acquiring privately owned land.
The proposed airport is designed as a bi-directional, all-weather facility, allowing aircraft to operate from either direction under appropriate conditions.
This is a significant operational advantage over the proposed INS Baaz extension, where geographical restrictions would have limited approach options and reduced operational availability.
The new site also offers the possibility of extending the runway in the future if traffic demand or strategic requirements increase.
According to the project’s planning assessment, the available land could accommodate anticipated airport expansion requirements up to 2075.
Such long-term expansion potential would have been difficult to achieve around INS Baaz because of the surrounding terrain, settlements, infrastructure and environmental restrictions.
Another important consideration is the relationship between the airport and the proposed International Container Transshipment Port at Galathea Bay.
The Greenfield Airport is planned adjacent to the proposed port and the wider infrastructure ecosystem being developed under the Great Nicobar project.
This proximity is expected to facilitate coordination between aviation, maritime transportation, logistics and other commercial activities.
An airport located close to the port could provide logistical support to port operations, improve the movement of personnel and facilitate the transportation of essential equipment and supplies.
By comparison, INS Baaz is approximately 45 kilometres away from the proposed transshipment port.
Although this distance would not make connectivity impossible, it would reduce the advantages of having an airport and major maritime facility operating as closely integrated infrastructure components.
The new airport’s location is therefore intended to support the broader economic and strategic objectives of the island’s development.
The decision to establish a Greenfield Airport also reflects the importance of completing supporting infrastructure within the overall project timeline.
The proposed transshipment port, township, power generation facilities and airport are interconnected components. Delays in one major infrastructure element could affect the operational readiness of the wider development programme.
Expanding INS Baaz would have required substantial engineering interventions, land acquisition, environmental management and relocation of existing infrastructure.
These requirements could have made the alternative more expensive and time-consuming than initially anticipated.
The possibility of resistance from local communities would also have complicated implementation, particularly given the potential disruption to existing transportation links and displacement of households.
Furthermore, the operational limitations associated with the existing runway’s geographical configuration would have remained a major concern even after substantial investment.
The Greenfield site, by contrast, offers the possibility of developing an airport specifically designed to meet civilian and military requirements while maintaining scope for future expansion.
The choice of the Greenfield Airport location provides the government with an alternative to expanding INS Baaz, but it does not eliminate the wider environmental questions surrounding the Great Nicobar development project.
The island is recognised for its ecologically sensitive landscapes, forests, coastal ecosystems and biodiversity. Large-scale infrastructure development therefore requires careful assessment of environmental impacts, effective mitigation measures and transparent monitoring.
The distinction between the two airport options is primarily one of comparative feasibility. The environmental and social implications of the selected Greenfield site must still be evaluated independently rather than assumed to be insignificant simply because it involves less private land and fewer permanent settlements.
The government faces the challenge of balancing infrastructure development, strategic requirements and ecological protection in one of India’s most environmentally sensitive island regions.
Ultimately, the proposed airport is intended to serve as a critical foundation for the wider Great Nicobar development programme. Its significance extends beyond passenger transportation to maritime logistics, emergency response, economic connectivity and national security.
The INS Baaz runway extension may have appeared to be a simpler alternative, but the geographical, operational, environmental and social constraints identified in the assessment presented for the project made it an impractical option.
The Greenfield location was consequently selected to provide greater operational flexibility, long-term expansion capacity and closer integration with the proposed transshipment port.
As the Great Nicobar project moves forward, the airport’s success will depend not only on completing construction but also on ensuring that its strategic and economic benefits are achieved without compromising the island’s fragile ecological balance.
