TOPICS TO BE COVERED
• BAILEY BRIDGE
• LEGAL CHALLENGES IN GREAT NICOBAR INFRA PROJECT
• MCQs
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BAILEY BRIDGE
A major challenge in the rescue efforts in Wayanad was the continued rains in the region, making the movement of men and materials difficult. To solve this problem, the Indian Army’s Madras Engineer Group on Thursday built a “Bailey bridge”, which was assembled at Chooralmala, to reach Mundakkai village one of the sites worst hit by the landslides. The 190-foot Bailey bridge has been crucial in facilitating the movement of heavy machinery and ambulances. It has a weight-carrying capacity of 24 tonnes and will remain in use until a permanent bridge is built.
WHAT IS A BAILEY BRIDGE?
Simply, it is a type of modular bridge, one whose parts are pre-built so that they need minimal construction work and can be assembled quickly when needed.
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HISTORY OF BAILEY BRIDGE
A US Army Engineer School manual notes that the Bailey bridge originated during wartime. Donald Coleman Bailey, an English civil engineer, invented it during World War 2 (1939-45).
The manual says, “In 1941, Bailey gave his first sketch of the bridge to the British War Office. The Bailey bridge used in World War II was designed to be moved, rebuilt, or replaced in several hours, even under enemy fire. It was used widely and well by Allied armies in Italy and northwest Europe, 1943-45. British Field Marshal Lord Bernard Law Montgomery said:
‘Without the Bailey bridge, we should not have won the war. It was the best thing in that line we ever had.’”
HOW DOES THE BAILEY BRIDGE WORKS?
• The pre-fabricated parts in a Bailey bridge include light steel panels linked through pins, which are big, screw-like objects.
• These help establish the guardrails of the bridge.
• Through the guardrails on either side, workers place beams to form the deck or path of the bridge.
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• All beams were constructed such that they would lock in on the guardrails to ensure stability.
• After that, the bridge can be extended, and the lightness of the parts allows it to be mobile. No heavy installation equipment is needed.
• In disaster relief situations, this is ideal because parts can be transported in small trucks something also of use during wartime.
BAILEY BRIDGES IN INDIA
In a publication from India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), MR Joshi, Former Director of the Research & Development Establishment (Engineers) in Pune wrote, “The Indian armed forces, and particularly the Indian Army carried on the British legacy and thus inherited a large inventory of the Bailey bridge.”
WHEN DID WE USE THESE BRIDGES?
Such bridges were used in the 1971 war with Pakistan for the liberation of Bangladesh. Joshi wrote that it was only afterwards that bridging equipment began arriving in India, the first being from the then-Soviet Union.
In the past, Bailey bridges have also been constructed in a strategically important village along the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh, and in Uttarakhand in 2021 after flash floods hit the state.
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LEGAL CHALLENGES IN GREAT NICOBAR INFRA PROJECT
The Central government’s Rs 72,000 cr-Great Nicobar Island (GNI) infrastructure project has also faced legal challenges in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and the Calcutta High Court, which has jurisdiction over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Great Nicobar is the southernmost and largest of the Nicobar Islands, a sparsely inhabited 910-sq-km patch of mainly tropical rainforest in southeastern Bay of Bengal.
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• Indira Point on the island, India’s southernmost point, is only 90 nautical miles (less than 170 km) from Sabang at the northern tip of Sumatra, the largest island of the Indonesian archipelago.
• Great Nicobar has two national parks (Galathea Bay National Park and Campbell Bay National Park, a biosphere reserve (Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve.), small populations of the Shompen and Nicobarese tribal peoples, and a few thousand nontribal settlers.
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ABOUT THE PROJECT
• NITI Aayog has come up with a plan for the Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island.
o Project implementation agency is the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO).
• Mega project includes:
▪ international container transshipment terminal (ICTT),
▪ a military-civil dual use airport,
▪ a solar power plant and
▪ an integrated township.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
• Strategic Importance as it is in close proximity with South East Asia as well as SL. It will give a push to our Act East Policy.
• Enhanced Security as it will give us a base deep down the IOR. Maritime Piracy, terrorism, illegal trade & undue dominance of China can be tackled.
• It can create an economic trade hub in Andaman & Nicobar Island.
• It may promote tourism.
• It will also increase employment.
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
• The proposed infra upgrade has been opposed on grounds of the threat it poses to the ecology of the islands.
• The opposition by wildlife conservation researchers, anthropologists, scholars, and civil society has focused on the potentially devastating impact on the Shompen, a particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) of hunter-gatherers with an estimated population of a few hundred individuals who live in a tribal reserve on the island.
• It is feared that the port project will destroy coral reefs with spinoff effects on the local marine ecosystem, and pose a threat to the terrestrial Nicobar Megapode bird and leatherback turtles who nest in the Galathea Bay area.
• the proposed port is in a seismically volatile zone that saw permanent subsidence of about 15 ft during the 2004 tsunami.
THE MoEFCC ON THE PROJECT
Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has granted environmental clearance for diversion of 130.75 sq. km of forest in Great Nicobar Island (GNI) for mega ₹72,000-crore multi-development projects.
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Key condition for the environmental clearance is the submission of a detailed scheme for compensatory afforestation, which is to be done on non-notified forest land.
THE APPEALS AGAINST THE PROJECT
In 2022, environmental activist Ashish Kothari and Mumbai-based non-profit Conservation Action Trust (CAT) challenged the environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone clearances granted to the GNI project.
Along with the submission before the eastern bench of the NGT, CAT filed a separate appeal challenging the forest clearance.
NGT formed a High Panel Committee (HPC) to look into the investigations.
THE GROUNDS FOR APPEAL
• The grounds for the appeals were similar, centred on irreversible damage that the project would cause to biodiversity, inadequate environmental impact studies and opacity in the clearance process.
• The appeals pointed out that GNI was a Biosphere Reserve, home to a “wide spectrum of ecosystems comprising wet evergreen forests”.
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• Issues of inadequate assessment of the impact on Shompen and Nicobarese tribal communities and non-compliance with due process in granting statutory clearances were also flagged.
o The Shompens are hunter-gatherers, while the Nicobarese people’s ancestral lands are likely to be affected by the project.
THE FINDINGS OF THE HPC
Last week, conclusions of a high-powered committee (HPC) formed by NGT in 2023 to revisit the project’s green clearance were submitted in an affidavit to NGT’s Kolkata bench by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation Limited (ANIIDCO). ANIIDCO is the project’s implementing agency.
The HPC concluded that the proposed transshipment port does not fall in the Island Coastal Regulation Zone-IA (ICRZ-IA), where ports are prohibited.
THE NGT RULING
• The special bench ruled it did not find any ground to interfere with the forest clearance.
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• It said while the forest help tackle air pollution and climate change, development cannot be ignored.
• It added that there was hardly any development in GNI and there was a need not only for “economic development but also national security”.
• The bench said that while the environmental impact assessment procedure is mandatory, it does not follow that “hyper technical approach should be adopted ignoring ground realities about the need of the country for development and national security.”
• There were “unanswered deficiencies” on coral conservation, the port’s location in a prohibited area and limited baseline data collection. An HPC headed by the Secretary, MoEFCC, was thus formed and ordered to finalise a report within two months
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MCQs
1. Consider the following statements and mark the correct one:
1. Bailey’s Bridge was invented by an AMerican Civil Engineer during the second World War.
2. Bailey’s Bridge is pre assembled.
(A) Only 1
(B) Only 2
(C) Both 1 & 2
(D) Neither 1 nor 2
Ans. (B)
2. Where & when in India has the Bailey’s bridge come into use?
1. During the 1965 war with Pakistan.
2. During the flash floods in Uttarakhand in 2021.
3. In areas along the Indo-CHina border.
(A) Only 1 & 3
(B) Only 2 & 3
(C) Only 3
(D) All of the above.
Ans. (B)
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3. Consider the following statements and mark the correct one:
1. Indira Point is located on the Great Nicobar Island.
2. Andaman & Nicobar group of islands are separated by 10 degree channel.
(A) Only 1
(B) Only 2
(C) Both 1 & 2
(D) Neither 1 nor 2
Ans. (C)
4. The Great Nicobar Island project can lead to?
1. Greater presence of India in the Indian Ocean Region.
2. More development in the Andaman & Nicobar Island.
(A) Only 1
(B) Only 2
(C) Both 1 & 2
(D) Neither 1 nor 2
Ans. (C)
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5. Which High Court has the jurisdiction over Andaman & Nicobar Islands?
(A) Madras HC
(B) Andhra Pradesh
(C) Odisha
(D) Kolkata
Ans. (D)