New Delhi, May 17 -- Congress general secretary in-charge of communications and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh wrote to defence minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday, calling the Rs.81,000 crore Great Nicobar Island Development Project "a recipe for ecological disaster" and urging him to consider expanding existing naval infrastructure across the Union Territory instead.

The letter, dated May 16, is the third time Ramesh wrote to a senior Cabinet minister in less than a fortnight on the project. He wrote to the Union minister of environment, forests and climate change on May 10, and to the Union minister of tribal affairs on May 13.

"Now I am writing to you since the project, which is essentially a commercial venture and is facing growing pu...