MALDIVES VS LAKSHADWEEP

MALDIVES VS LAKSHADWEEP

CONTEXT:

• Recently, PM Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep created huge uproar between India-Maldives relations.

ABOUT LAKSHADWEEP:

• In sanskrit, Lakshadweep means one hundred thousand islands.
• It is a group of 36 coral islands with a total area of only 32 sq km.
• 10 out of these 36 are inhabited by less than 65,000 people.

• It was the part of the erstwhile empire of Tipu Sultan. The islands were attached to the Madras Presidency during the British Raj, and then became a Union Territory in 1956.

ABOUT MALDIVES:

• The Maldives is an archipelago of around 1,190 coral islands and sandbanks clustered in 20-odd atolls.
• It sprawls over a patch of North Central Indian Ocean southwest of Kerala and Sri Lanka.
• Male, the capital, lies about 600 km south-west of Thiruvananthapuram, capital city of Kerala.

COMPARING THE TOURISM OF BOTH ARCHIPELAGOS:

• According to Ministry of Tourism data, Maldives saw a total number of 17,57,939 tourists till December 2023.
• As per the data, more than 1.67 million visited Maldives in 2022.
• As per Maldivian government data show, since the pandemic, Indian tourists have constituted the largest share of visitors to the country.
• More than 2 lakh tourists from India visited the Maldives in 2023, accounting for 11.2% of arrivals in the country.
• In 2022, 2021, and 2020 too, Indians had the largest share of arrivals at 14.4%, 22.1%, and 11.3% of the total respectively.
• On the other hand, According to the data, only 10,435 domestic tourists and 1,313 foreign tourists visited Lakshadweep in 2018.

WHY MALDIVES IS SO POPULAR AMONG TOURISTS?

• The Maldives has long invested in tourism sector.
• The Maldives tourism master plan 1996-2005 notes that tourism, which started with the development of 60 tourist beds on two islands, has been “the most important economic activity” in the country since the 1980s.
• According to the Maldives tourism ministry, As of January 17, there were 180 resorts, 15 hotels, 811 guesthouses, and 140 safari vessels offering a total of more than 62,000 beds.
• The Maldives also offers visa-free arrivals to its major source markets, which include India, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan.
• In terms of connectivity, Male has direct flights from 40 global capitals.
• The group of 1,200 islands come with 26 naturally occurring atolls. These atolls mean a distinct advantage when it comes to water-based activities.
• The atolls, or ring-shaped coral reefs, encircle a lagoon. This means naturally protected waters.

CHALLENGES IN MAKING LAKSHADWEEP A TOURIST HUB:

• Various restrictions imposed by Indian government are in place in the group of islands, with special focus on preserving the fragile ecosystem and indigenous way of life.
• Due to concerns over environmental damage and destruction of local livelihoods, India has never invested in its tourism potential.
• The Lakshadweep occupies a far smaller area, where only 10 islands are inhabited and the scope for tourism is limited.
• Lakshadweep is not in position to accept a huge influx of tourists because of the fragile ecology and sensitive environment.

JUSTICE RAVEENDRAN PANEL ON LAKSHADWEEP:

• In May 2012, the Supreme Court appointed a panel under Justice R V Raveendran (retd) to look into the environmental and developmental challenges on the Lakshadweep islands.
• The committee recommended that all infrastructure development proposals should be in accordance with an Integrated Island Management Plan.
• The infrastructure development should be implemented in consultation with elected local self-government bodies.
• The report also noted the “fragile ecology of the islands and the need for conservation of the corals, lagoons and other ecosystems”.
• It laid down the carrying capacity of each island.
• Bangaram, the uninhabited island that the Prime Minister visited, has the largest carrying capacity of 200 cottages.
• Among the inhabited islands, Kavaratti has a capacity of 243 cottages.

WAY FORWARD:

• India’s strength is not its island tourism as for a country this vast, it need not be.
• Though Lakshadweep is touted as the world’s most spectacular marine ecosystem and its coral reefs are the only ones in the Indian Union.But for Lakshadweep to really make it to the hotlist of tourists, the domestic circuit needs to be targeted first.
• Any development in tourism in this biodiversity hotspot, therefore, needs to be extremely sensitive to the fragility of Lakshadweep.