With the investor meet to attract investments kicking off today in New Delhi, Admiral DK Joshi, Lieutenant Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, draws up his blueprint for development in a dialogue with Bob Roy.
The A&N Islands investor meet is scheduled to be held today at New Delhi. What are your expectations from this meet?
We are expecting to attract several big ticket investments of Rs. 500-600 crore size. Government will be putting in place the infrastructure-optical fibre connectivity, road network, bridges, airports, power etc and become a facilitator in terms of creating single window clearance system , and may provide subsidies, concessions in terms of airport taxes, port charges, sea plane licence fee concessions etc. till the operations become economically sustainable. All the major four projects will be on PPP basis. The private investors will be given land on lease or some contract basis and we will go for annual profit sharing model on the long term basis. The Taj hotel project will be the template in these matters.
What are your plans to augment connectivity in and back and forth A&N Islands?
For fixed –wing aircrafts handling commercial traffic , we are planning four full-fledged dual-use airports with full length 3 km runways at Port Blair, Shibpur, Car Nicobar and Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar Island, roughly 250 km apart, providing coverage from north to South over a stretch of about 800 kilometers. These are expected to take off by end of this year.
We want to extend inter Island helicopter service, fixed wing aircraft service and sea plane service through the Udan Scheme so that viability gap funding, subsidies can be availed. The third round of discussion on this is expected in a month’s time and things are progressing well.
Also, we have proposed larger capacity helicopters, instead of the 4-6 seaters, for induction into service here.
In the shipping sector, already private sector is operating in the commercially viable routes like Port Blair- Havelock etc. with ferries, local cruises etc. We are planning to open it up to the entire chain of Islands depending on commercial viability and passenger load, the private sector will be interested and is expected to expand their operations.
The North-South road is being made double-lane now by National Highways Authority of India. Two bridges are being built connecting two main Islands. One of them has already been build to the extent of 50%. Once completed, it will facilitate movement along the North-South Highway from the Northern to the Southern tip of the Islands. So 430 km can be covered in four hours- half the time it will take now.
All these initiatives are in very advanced stage-either in conception, planning, implementation or in execution stage and will be completed within two years. Last year, we had tourist arrival of around 4 lakhs, which is nearly equal to the entire population of the Islands and an increase of 22% over previous year. So the numbers are growing. With increased infrastructure bandwidth, we expect to meet the aspirations of the growing number of tourists.
How do you plan to position Andaman& Nicobar Islands as a Shipping hub?
As per the gateway to ASEAN and far –East initiatives, we are trying to position ourselves as a transhipment hub for all the maritime trade that is happening in the entire region comprising not only India’s East coast, but Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand and Far East coast. Currently bulk cargos are getting offloaded in Maldives or Indonesia from where smaller feeder vessels are taking it to other parts. Once A&N Islands transforms into transhipment hub, it will be a big advantage and cost saver for businesses.
(The interview has been published in Times of India on 10.08.2018)
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