Luxury cruises coming to Indian mainland, gets new immigration check posts

In another move by the Narendra Modi government, now, two of India’s remotest islands Agatti and Minicoy have been designated as immigration check post (ICP). The announcement made by the Home Ministry says, “From June 30, the Agatti and Minicoy islands in Lakshadweep will offer direct entry into or exit from India for all classes of foreign passengers.”

According to the order signed by Joint secretary GK Dwivedi, the move will attract more foreign luxury cruises.

An Economic Times report revealed that the enviable location of the islands is the reason why the ministry has announced India’s smallest ICP in the twin islands which are separated by approximately 200 kilo meters. The tiny islands fall in route to more than two dozen foreign cruises heading towards India through Arabian Sea.

Agatti, the smaller among the two islands, has covered the area of just 3.84 sq km while Minicoy, which is just 130 km from the northernmost island of Maldives, is slightly bigger with an area of 4.80 sq km. The islands lie on one of the busiest shipping routes.

The current situation does not allows international cruises to approach the base, which have to travel 450 km extra to Kochi in the Indian mainland for immigration and custom clearance if it wishes to dock at Agatti. If these vessels have to sail through any foreign country after visiting Lakshadweep, then again they have to go back to Kochi if the vessel has to go back to any foreign country.

Therefore, international cruises have to spend two-three more days travelling to and from Kochi at a higher cost. Unsurprisingly, these cruises have increasingly started given the exotic Lakshadweep islands a miss in their itineraries.

"Every year, 15-20 foreign luxury cruises are crossing through the Lakshadweep territorial waters, and facilitation of at least 50 % of these vessels to visit Lakshadweep islands, will enable over 5,000 foreign tourists to visit Lakshadweep which will be almost equal to the total number of tourists (both domestic and foreign) who visited Lakshadweep during the last tourist season (2013-2014)," says the Lakshadweep Tourism Policy-2014.