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The telephone lines of the Lakshadweep Society for the Promotion of Nature Tourism and Sports (SPORTS), which deals with tourism in the area, have never been so busy. From one or two tourist requests a day, they have been receiving at least 10 a day for the past month, said Abdul Samad, one of two SPORTS water sports instructors who helped Modi go diving with snorkel on the island in January. Meanwhile, Cordelia Cruises, which has been sailing from Mumbai, Kochi and Goa to Lakshadweep since September 2021, has seen a 2,500% increase in booking requests since Modi’s visit. New beach and water villas are already planned on the islands of Suheli and Kadmat, Samad confirmed, and Indian Finance Minister Neermala Sitharaman even mentioned Lakshadweep in her February 1 budget speech, speaking better connectivity with the Indian islands to develop tourism.
Located in the Arabian Sea, the 36 islands of Lakshadweep comprise 12 atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks. Its 10 inhabited islands have around 70,000 inhabitants, who depend mainly on fishing and coconut farming.
The pristine white sand islands are unlike other beaches on the Indian coast. Lakshadweep, meaning a lakh (100,000) islands in Sanskrit language, are India’s only atolls and lie just above sea level, explained Vardhan Patankar, who has worked in Lakshadweep for 15 years and is GVI’s conservation director , which facilitates conservation projects around the world. These atolls are remnants of ancient volcanoes that erupted and then gradually sank just above sea level, growing a ring of corals protruding from the ocean surface. “Lakshadweep, which is just a few meters above sea level, is protected by coral reefs,” Patankar explained.
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