12 LAKSHADWEEP ISLANDS FOR HIGH-END TOURISTS
Centre will develop these islands under its island development programme, but limit their access to serious adventure and fun tourists
Planning to spend a long weekend with family and friends in an exotic and unexplored location within the country? You have new options — 12 new Lakshadweep islands. The only catch: you should be prepared to shell out over ~15,000 for one night.
If things go as planned, the Centre will develop 12 new Lakshadweep islands under its island development programme, but limit their access to serious adventure and fun tourists.
The number of tourists visiting these islands will also be planned and closely monitored to ensure the highly fragile ecology of these coral islands is not adversely affected.
The visits will only be on a prior booking basis, and there will be no drive-in facility.
According to senior officials, the movement of tourists will be limited to a specific area in the islands, so that the privacy of locals and tribal people, many of whom have their communities cut off from the world, is maintained.
“We won’t allow this (opening of islands for tourists) to impact the much-cherished and highly fragile ecological and environmental characteristics of the Lakshadweep islands,” Farooq Khan, administrator of the Lakshadweep islands, told Business Standard.
He said the Centre in the first phase planned to build about 150 rooms in the inhabited and uninhabited islands of Lakshadweep, in association with private parties. Of these, 84 rooms would be in inhabited islands of Bangaram and Suheli.
Resort owners who exceed their allocated quota of rooms would be penalised and their licences will be cancelled to ensure that there is no crowding of resorts.
Of the 12 identified islands in Lakshadweep, for which permission has been granted to develop as tourism destinations, the work in the first phase will start on 10 — Minicoy, Kadmat, Agatti, Chetlat, Bitra, Bangaram, Thinakarra, Cheriyan, Suheli and Kalpeni. Among these, the first five are inhabited.
Lakshwadeep is an archipelago of 12 atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks, with a total of 39 islands and islets. Of these, fewer than half are inhabited.
Development of the new islands is part of the Centre’s ambitious programme of holistic development of 26 islands in Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar, for which it formed an Island Development Agency in June last year.
Along with the NITI Aayog, the government plans to develop these islands into tourist attractions on the lines of popular Southeast Asian beach destinations.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting on island development and asked the Aayog and others to expedite the development of all 26 islands with a special emphasis on energy self-sufficiency.
In case of Lakshadweep, officials said, the government was planning to soon invite potential resort owners, hoteliers and tourism industry players and showcase the tourism potential of these islands.
“We want the best players in the world to participate in the bidding process to build the resorts,” Khan said.
These should be only those operators who can ensure power from self-generated solar stations, along with a proper wastedisposal plan and RO plants to provide clean drinking water to residents.
In addition to the development of tourist resorts, the government was also identifying lagoons alongside the new island where sea planes could be operated, so that tourists could be transported, he said.
Also, a new airport was being built along with the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Minicoy to provide an alternative landing facility for the tourists, Khan added.
“We are highly cautious while throwing open these islands for tourists and would not want to repeat mistakes that resulted following such initiatives in the Maldives and other places faced,” Khan explained.