Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Rs 1,072 crore Kochi-Lakshadweep islands submarine optical fiber connection (KLI-SOFC), on Wednesday.
It is very easy to miss the 36 islands and atolls that together constitute the Lakshadweep island on a conventional map and one has to zoom multiple times on the digital map to locate these islands.
The capital Kavaratti is roughly 320-plus kilometers by sea from the Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala, Kerala as the crow flies. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 47,000 people of the 68,000 population spread across a total of 32 km landmass voted to select their local Member of Parliament. In the Delhi Assembly elections, 47,000 votes are the margin between a win and loss on many seats.
It was because of this “irrelevance” to national polity and its remote location which perhaps stopped policymakers in the past from investing in Lakshadweep as the rest of India moved ahead swiftly.
This was allowed to happen despite the first Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, who sought to take control of these remote islands and convert them into a southern extension of Pakistan in the Indian Ocean and sent a naval frigate from Karachi in August 1947.
The move could be thwarted as the then Indian Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel, showing exemplary presence of mind, acted swiftly and sent a team of Indian officials to hoist the India flag before Pakistani navy personnel could land on these islands and claim ownership.
Strategically, the Lakshadweep islands are importantly placed and give India an Exclusive Economic Zone of 400,000 sq km. It is located right in the middle of the Arabian Sea, hundreds of kilometers away from the mainland, perfectly placed to keep an eye on the neighbourhood and the movements of ships that travel to and from Gulf of Aden and Gulf of Oman.
As far as defence related developments are concerned, the island group saw sporadic development, much of which happened post the wakeup call of the 2008 Mumbai attack.
In 2010, two coast guard stations in Kavaratti and Minicoy were commissioned. In 2012, another coast guard station was commissioned in Androth. In the same year, the Indian Navy established a base in Kavaratti in April 2012, that was named as INS Dweeprakshak, more than 32 years after it first set up a detachment there. In 2016, a naval detachment was commissioned on Androth Island.
The communication backwardness as far as these parts of India is concerned, can be gauged from the fact that while Airtel 4G was launched in Delhi in June 2015, in Lakshadweep it was launched four years later, in June 2019.
Till last week, Airtel had two network towers in the capital and most of the internet was supplied through satellite by BSNL which was costly and patchy and not available to locals. The said internet through satellite system was launched in the island by BSNL in August 2021.
However, things are going to change rapidly now, impacting multiple realms, including tourism and India’s strategic requirements.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Rs 1,072 crore Kochi-Lakshadweep islands submarine optical fiber connection (KLI-SOFC) that was approved on 9 December 2020. The said project was announced by PM Modi on Independence Day in 2020 and he had given a deadline of 1,000 days to officials to execute this project. The Cabinet approval letter for the project was issued on 18 December 2020. However, due to the Covid pandemic, the said project was delayed by a few months and it was finally inaugurated last week.
Under the said project, for the first time in history, Submarine Optical Fibre Cable has been laid between Kavaratti and ten other islands—Kalpeni, Agatti, Amini, Androth, Minicoy, Bangaram, Bitra, Chetlat, Kiltan and Kadmat.
With the functioning of this cable line, the internet speed in the region will increase more than 100 times (from 1.7 Gbps to 200 Gbps). The dedicated submarine OFC, as the release from the Central government rightly noted, will ensure a paradigm shift in communication infrastructure in the islands, enabling faster and more reliable internet services, telemedicine, e-governance, educational initiatives, digital banking, digital currency usage, digital literacy etc.
In comparison with satellites, subsea cables provide high capacity, cost-effective, and reliable connections that are critical for both common and strategic uses.
Most importantly, it will lead tourists from across the country to explore the option of flying or sailing to these islands as lack of internet was a significant reason for people avoiding the islands despite the clean beaches and clear sea water that it offers.
Official sources said that the lack of internet penetration in that part of India was something that was being raised by officials for a long time, as because of this the sharing of information from the islands was a big hindrance as they were dependent on limited tools to gather information.
The Sunday Guardian spoke to officials who had travelled with the PM for the inauguration of the submarine cables and it was clear that conversation could take place only if the officials were standing in a few selected spots which were near to the mobile towers. All this is set to change as the impact of undersea cables start taking effect, leading to easier communication over wifi.
With the penetration of internet and related communication assets, the islands are set to grow as one of India’s most important listening stations for defence purposes overseeing the neighbouring region.
The southernmost islands of Lakshadweep islands, Minicoy is at a distance of 130 km from the tourist-friendly Uligan island that constitutes Maldives. Minicoy is among the islands that have been connected with the undersea cables. The Maldivian waters are among the preferred docking places for Chinese naval ships, something that has come as a serious concern not just for Delhi but also for Washington.
The Union Government, as is the global norm, has kept the defence related developments that are being worked on under wraps even as reports are inbound of India working on a fully operational naval base in Lakshadweep islands where entry pass or an inner line permit is required for entering the islands.