Only one ship for Lakshadweep travel

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Union Ministry yet to send a helicopter to operate service among islands

Delivery of ship from Visakhapatnam shipyard overdue for four years

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The monsoon season is the worst period of time for the residents of Lakshadweep islands. The islanders, who rely on the mainland for everything from groceries to medical care, get virtually cut off from the rest of the country as well as from neighbouring islands during the monsoon. Transportation, bad even at the best of times, becomes almost unavailable and islanders visiting Kochi or Kozhikode get stuck for weeks together.

The Lakshadweep administration has at its disposal only two all-weather passenger ships (Tipu Sultan and Bharat Seema) and three fair-weather ships (Amin Divi, Minicoy and Deep Setu). The three fair-weather vessels are taken off the service for the entire monsoon season as they cannot stand the turbulent sea.

After Tipu Sultan was taken off the service on June 20 for routine repairs and maintenance, the residents of the entire Union Territory are left with only one vessel, Bharat Seema, with only around 350 seats on it. Administration officials say that Tipu Sultan will be back on July 10. Since Bharat Seema runs only one service a week from Kochi, scores of islanders are left behind every time it sails off. As there is no other ship available to interconnect the various islands in Lakshadweep, Bharat Seema has to go from one island to another ferrying people, and thus takes more time for its travel.

The administration had been pressing the Union Government well before the arrival of the monsoon for extra travel help. It had urged the Union Home Ministry to ask the Andaman and Nicobar Administration to loan a passenger ship to it for the monsoon season, but help seems to be a long way off. At the June 15 Island Development Authority meeting held in New Delhi, the administrator had asked the Civil Aviation Ministry to send a 26-seat helicopter for running service among the islands during the monsoon. The aircraft is yet to come. Leaders of Lakshadweep organisations point out that monsoon is the time when the islanders need of medical aid available at Kochi the most, but the transportation bottlenecks are the worst during this time. They point out that the long-awaited 700-seat passenger ship, in the making at the Visakhapatnam shipyard, has been overdue for four years.