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Aging ships may cut off Lakshadweep from India

George Iype in Kochi

The Union territory of Lakshadweep, a cluster of coral islands in the Arabian sea off Kerala coast, which attracts thousands of domestic and foreign tourists every year, is on the verge of being cut off from the rest of India thanks to two aging passenger ships.

The Lakshadweep administration has been operating two vessels -- M V Tipu Sultan and M V Bharat Seema -- to transport tourists and locals from and to the islands. But age has caught up with the ships -- which together can transport 1,046 passengers daily -- and they are in bad shape.

M V Bharat Seema, whose life will expire in 2004, has been dry-docked at the Cochin shipyard for emergency repairs. M V Tipu Sultan's life expires in 2002. It has been tenuously operating on one engine for many months now. It will be anchored in the yard for a month-long repair from January 26.

Plane and helicopter services operate between the mainland and the islands, but a majority of the tourists and locals sail to the islands from Kochi.

"Ship service has been the life line of the masses in the islands. Now the people of Lakshadweep are stranded without any mass transport facility. Tourists have stopped visiting our islands," Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed, who represents Lakshadweep in the Lower House of Indian Parliament, told rediff.com.

He said poor maintenance of the vessels and delay in the acquisition of new ships to replace the old ones have led to acute transportation problems for the islanders.

According to the Lakshadweep tourism department, the tourist inflow into the islands has been hit hard even though the department came out with millennium special packages for international tourists.

Hundreds of tourists in fact came over to Kochi for the trip to the islands, but were forced to reschedule their plans after getting to know that there were no ships available to sail to Lakshadweep.

Thus the department has been forced to refund the booking amounts. As per official figures, a total of Rs 45,37,898 has been refunded to tourists so far. The department has to immediately pay back another instalment of Rs 13,95,868 to tourists.

"It is sad that we have to ring up the tourists to inform that their tour programmes have been cancelled due to transportation unavailability," Sayeed said.

Sayeed has been taking up the matter with the Central government for two years. Finally, the Public Investment Board has sanctioned Rs 1.3 billion for the acquisition of a new passenger-cum-cargo vessel for Lakshadweep.

But the new air-conditioned ship with a capacity to carry 700 passengers and 100 tonnes of cargo and to be built by the Hindustan Shipyard will be ready only in three years.

However, though the news of the Centre's approval for a new vessel has gladdened the Lakshadweep authorities, the transportation problem in the next three years is worrying them.

The Lakshadweep administration has thus written to Union Minister for Surface Transport Rajnath Singh requesting him to temporarily deploy M V Harsh Vardhan, for plying between Lakshadweep and Kochi.

A new 1,200 passenger capacity vessel has started operating in the Andamans easing the pressure on M V Harsh Vardhan.

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