Regional Planning and Development of Island Territories

• Island territories are a distinct class of planning region. Every island is, in effect, a coastal unit: its land and sea systems cannot be planned apart.
• India has about 1,382 offshore islands and islets in the 2016 count. A later Survey of India reconciliation gives 1,389 in all, 91 of them inshore. Older counts give over 1,000 islands, of which 247 are inhabited: 204 in the Bay of Bengal and 43 in the Arabian Sea. Two oceanic groups dominate planning: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea. Estuarine and coastal islands such as Sagar and Nayachar form a third, smaller group.
• Islands face the “tyranny of distance”: isolation, fragile ecosystems, narrow resources and high exposure to cyclones, tsunamis, sea-level rise and ocean acidification. Mainland models of development do not transfer.
• Planning has moved from welfare and protection of island tribes to NITI Aayog’s holistic development of islands (2017 onward) and the Great Nicobar Project, which sets strategic and economic aims against ecology and tribal rights.

India’s Island Territories

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Two Island Systems Compared

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

• Physiography: the islands are the emerged peaks of a submarine ridge that continues the Arakan Yoma of Myanmar south to Sumatra. They lie on the boundary where the Indian Plate dives beneath the Burma microplate. The ridges run north to south with deep inlets and creeks between them and few flats; groundwater is limited, and soils, from clay to loamy sand, are acidic and poor in nutrients.
  • North, Middle and South Andaman, Ritchie’s Archipelago and Little Andaman form the Andaman group. The Ten Degree Channel (about 150 km wide) separates it from the Nicobar group: Car Nicobar, the Central Nicobars (Teressa, Bompoka, Katchall, Nancowry), and Little and Great Nicobar with Indira Point, India’s southernmost point.
  • Older counts: 556 islands with 36 inhabited (or 572 islands and islets), about 26 of them inhabited in the Andamans; the Nicobars have 22 main islands, 10 inhabited.
  • Barren Island is India’s only active volcano; Narcondam is dormant.
  • The islands are in seismic zone V. The 2004 earthquake and tsunami subsided parts of the Nicobars by over a metre and destroyed coastal villages.
• Climate and ecology: an equatorial, wet climate, 1,400–3,000 mm of rain a year from both monsoons and cyclones over about eight months, and evergreen and moist deciduous forest over about 82% of the land (recorded forest 87%).
  • About 2,200 plant varieties are recorded, 200 endemic and 1,300 absent from the mainland. The flora mixes Indian, Malaysian and Myanmarese strains: wet evergreen forest with climbers in North Andaman, moist deciduous in Middle Andaman, epiphytes (ferns, orchids) in South Andaman, evergreen forest in the Nicobars. Of over 200 timber species about 30 are commercial; gurjan and padauk are the main ones, and rudraksha and dhoop also occur.
  • About 50 mammals, 270 birds and 225 butterfly species. Mount Harriet National Park is rich in butterflies and moths.
  • Extensive mangroves, coral reefs and the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve; the coastline runs to 1,962 km and the islands give India about 6 lakh sq km of EEZ, nearly 30% of the total.
• People: most of the population descends from settlers (Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayali and Ranchi tribal migrants) brought in after the penal settlement and post-1947 colonisation schemes.
  • Six indigenous groups live here. The Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese (Negrito) live in the Andamans. The Nicobarese and Shompen (Mongoloid) live in the Nicobars, the Shompen in the interior forests of Great Nicobar. Five are PVTGs; the Nicobarese are not.
  • The Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island remain uncontacted. The Jarawa live in a forest reserve on the west coast of South and Middle Andaman, the Onge on Little Andaman, and the Great Andamanese on Strait Island.
  • Reserves and distances: North Sentinel lies about 34 km west of South Andaman; the Jarawa reserve is about 639 sq km; Little Andaman is about 130 km south of the capital; Strait Island about 46 km from it; the Shompen range over about 119 sq km.
  • A seventh group, the Jangil (Rutland Jarawa), listed in older accounts, was presumed extinct by 1931.

• Small numbers: estimates around 2001 were Jarawa 350, Shompen 250–300, Sentinelese 250, Onge 98 and Great Andamanese 39. Original inhabitants were once put at 12% of the people, against 7.5% ST in 2011.
• Demographic dualism: the Jarawa and Sentinelese are small, seminomadic groups at the high-fertility, high-mortality stage of the demographic transition. The Nicobarese, with horticulture and more integration, stand at a far later stage.
• Economy: only about 6% of the land (48,700 hectares) is cultivated: paddy in the Andamans, coconut and arecanut as cash crops, with pulses, oilseeds and vegetables.
  • Industry is small-scale: 1,375 small-scale, village and handicraft units and four medium units in older counts: fish processing (two export-oriented units), shell and wood crafts, rice milling, bakery, furniture, polythene bags, PVC pipes and fittings, paints and varnishes, fibre glass, flour, soft drinks and beverages. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation finances tourism, fisheries and industry.
  • Government services, defence and tourism are the largest employers.
• Resources and their limits:
  • Forests were long the main resource. Commercial felling of gurjan, padauk and other timbers was stopped after a Supreme Court order of 2002, so forests are now valued for conservation, minor produce and tourism.
  • Marine resources are the largest untapped asset: tuna, shark, reef fish, shellfish and seaweed in a vast EEZ, used mostly by small craft. Deep-sea fishing from these bases, with allied industry, would diversify the economy.
  • Plantations of coconut, arecanut, spices and rubber, and a red oil palm plantation on Little Andaman, occupy the cleared lowlands.
  • No significant minerals have been found on land; seabed resources and hydrocarbons in the Andaman basin remain under survey.
  • Scenery and heritage (reefs, beaches, the Cellular Jail, Ross Island) support tourism, the fastest-growing sector.
• Settlement history: a penal settlement from 1858, then colonisation schemes after 1947 for refugees from East Pakistan, ex-servicemen and repatriates from Sri Lanka.
  • New settlement cleared forests on Little Andaman, Great Nicobar and the Middle Andamans, and confined the Onge to Dugong Creek and South Bay. This is a planning lesson: settler development reduced indigenous territory.
  • After the 2004 tsunami, Nicobarese villages on Great Nicobar were moved inland to sites such as New Chingen and Rajiv Nagar. The tribal council still seeks a return to its coastal lands.

Lakshadweep

• India’s smallest UT and its only coral-atoll archipelago, 220–440 km off the Keralam (Kerala) coast.
  • Amindivi islands lie in the north, the Laccadive islands in the centre, and Minicoy in the south, separated from the rest by the Nine Degree Channel. The Eight Degree Channel divides Minicoy from the Maldives.
  • The inhabited islands are Kavaratti, Agatti, Amini, Kadmat, Kiltan, Chetlat, Bitra, Andrott, Kalpeni and Minicoy. Andrott is the largest (4.9 sq km) and nearest to the mainland; Bitra is the smallest inhabited island. Other main units are Pitti and the Investigator Bank. Older accounts count 43 islands, eleven inhabited, and call Minicoy the largest.
• The islands are low and flat, on coral sand over limestone, rising no more than about 5 m even at the highest, with a thin freshwater lens that is easily over-pumped or salinised. Vegetation is mainly coconut palm. Pitti islet is a bird sanctuary, and Cheriyapani reef holds the world’s first sea cucumber conservation reserve (2020).
• People: ethnically close to the Malayali people of Keralam, with Arab influence; over 95% follow Islam. Islanders call themselves Div-I or Aminidivi. Minicoy’s people, descendants of early settlers from Sri Lanka who were first Buddhist, speak Mahl, close to the language of the Maldives. Lakshadweep is a tribal-majority UT: 94.8% ST.
• Economy: coconut (copra, coir), tuna fishing by pole-and-line, government jobs and tourism.
  • About 2,600 hectares are under coconut; coir spinning and copra making are the main household industries, with coir training-cum-production centres on several islands.
  • Bread fruit, citrus, drumsticks, coarse grains, pulses and vegetables grow in kitchen gardens; artificial manures and new seeds came in the Third Plan, and paddy was tried from 1967. Some hosiery and handloom units also run. Poor soils and small size rule out large industry, so tourism, aquaculture and fisheries are promoted.
  • Lagoons cover about 4,200 sq km, many times the land area, and the EEZ about 4 lakh sq km, so the future economy is marine.
  • Agatti has the only airport, with private flights from Kochi and Bengaluru since 2007; ships from Kochi and Beypore and helicopters link the islands.
• Governance: an Administrator appointed by the President runs the UT, with a district panchayat and island panchayats. Non-islanders need an entry permit, and land stays with islanders, which has protected the atolls from land speculation.

Coastal and Estuarine Islands: Sagar and Nayachar

• Sagar (Gangasagar) Island, at the mouth of the Hooghly, is the largest island of the Indian Sundarbans, about 150 km south of Kolkata, spreading over about 300 sq km with 43 villages and over two lakh residents (1.6 lakh in older counts).
  • It hosts the Gangasagar Mela at Makar Sankranti, a pilgrimage of millions to the Kapil Muni temple at the Ganga’s confluence with the sea.
  • Kolkata port has a pilot station and lighthouse here, and the island is rich in mangroves, creeks and tidal channels. Older accounts place the Royal Bengal tiger here; the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve itself lies further east.
  • Problems: ferry dependence across the Muriganga (Harwood Point at Kakdwip to Kachuberia), cyclones (Aila 2009, Amphan 2020), coastal erosion and salinity; neighbouring Ghoramara island has lost much of its land.
  • Gangasagar Setu: a four-lane bridge of about 5 km (a 3.2 km cable-stayed main span) from Kakdwip to Kachuberia, costing about ₹1,700 crore. An older plan was a 3.3 km bridge at about ₹600 crore. The foundation of the present bridge was laid in January 2026, with completion expected in about four years.
• Nayachar is a young, dolphin-shaped silt island (about 64 sq km) in the Hooghly opposite Haldia, settled by fishing families from the 1980s.
  • A petrochemical hub (PCPIR) approved for it in 2008 was scrapped in 2011: the island lies in the Coastal Regulation Zone, its soft soils are hazard-prone, and fishers’ livelihoods were at stake.
  • The environment ministry (2013) found it unfit for industry and best kept as a natural laboratory of mangrove succession. The State has since proposed an aquaculture hub and solar plant (2022).
• Other coastal islands: Salsette (Mumbai), Elephanta, Diu, Willingdon and Vypin (Kochi), Pamban (Rameswaram), the Tuticorin and Vedaranyam islets, the barrier island of Sriharikota, and islands off Kathiawad, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

Planning Problems of Island Territories

Structural Constraints

• Population pressure: atoll islands such as Kavaratti and Andrott carry densities above 2,000 per sq km on land a few metres above the sea. Housing, waste disposal and water supply press against carrying capacity, and most people and critical infrastructure crowd low coasts. Small islands elsewhere, such as Tidung Besar in Indonesia, show the same overbuilding.
• Tourism trap: tourism brings income but strains water, energy and waste systems, is seasonal and externally driven, and can displace fishing and local control. Tourism carrying capacity has to fix its limits. In small island states it can reach 60–80% of GDP.
• Such constraints make islands classic problem regions: tectonic instability in one group, low-lying fragility in the other.

Geostrategic Significance

• The Andaman and Nicobar chain stretches about 750 km across the eastern Bay of Bengal and commands the Preparis, Ten Degree and Six Degree channels; the last is the main entry to the Malacca Strait, through which a large share of the world’s sea trade and East Asia’s oil passes.
  • Indira Point is about 150 km from Sumatra; the Coco Islands of Myanmar lie 45 km north of the Andamans.
  • The islands host the Andaman and Nicobar Command (2001), India’s only tri-service theatre command, with air and naval stations at Car Nicobar, Campbell Bay (INS Baaz) and Shibpur.
• Lakshadweep and Minicoy overlook the Nine and Eight Degree Channels, main routes between the Gulf, the Suez and East Asia. Minicoy has a naval base, INS Jatayu (2024), and an airfield there is planned for joint use.
• The A&N Islands give India nearly 30% of its EEZ and Lakshadweep about 4 lakh sq km more, and together they form a forward base for disaster relief, anti-piracy patrols, ocean surveillance and the Act East and Indo-Pacific policies.
• Planning implication: strategic infrastructure (ports, airfields, cables, fuel depots) must be planned with civilian needs, ecology and tribal protection. The Great Nicobar Project is the sharpest example.

Why Regional Planning Matters for Islands

• Island-specific diseconomies (distance, small size, single-sector economies) make sectoral, mainland-designed schemes costly and wasteful. An island has to be planned as one integrated region of land and sea.
  • Typical example: Lakshadweep’s water supply depends on reading the whole atoll as a system: lens recharge, coconut cover, sewage and desalination together.
• Ecological thresholds are low. Andaman reefs suffered from silt after forest clearance and road building; only spatial plans with carrying capacity can keep tourism and settlement within limits.
• Hazard exposure (2004 tsunami, cyclones, sea-level rise) needs zoning, resilient design and evacuation planning at island scale.
• Indigenous protection needs territorial planning: reserves, buffer zones and the 1956 Regulation are spatial instruments, not welfare schemes.
• Strategic and economic projects (transshipment, tourism, cables) bring large investments to small populations. Without planning they can overwhelm local society, as the debate over Great Nicobar shows.

Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise

• Lakshadweep is the most exposed: its islands stand 1–2 m above sea level, so a rise of tens of centimetres brings erosion, flooding by storm surge and saltwater intrusion into the freshwater lens.
• Coral bleaching (major events in 1998, 2010, 2016 and 2024) weakens reefs that act as natural breakwaters and support the tuna and reef fisheries.
• In the Andamans and Nicobars, low coasts, mangroves and settlements on reclaimed land are at risk; the 2004 subsidence showed how land and sea levels can change suddenly.
• Estuarine islands in the Sundarbans already lose land: subsidence, reduced sediment, cyclones and rising seas combine. Ghoramara’s shrinking is a warning for Sagar.
• Responses: mangrove and reef restoration, setback lines, raised and resilient housing, protection of water lenses, managed retreat where needed, and climate-proof ports and airstrips.

Strategies for Island Development

Evolution of Island Planning in India

• Plan period to the 1980s: the islands were planned as Union Territory plans under the Ministry of Home Affairs, focused on settlement, forestry, coconut, shipping and welfare of tribes. Forest working, settler colonisation and road building caused heavy ecological damage.
• Island Development Authority (1986): set up under the Prime Minister within the Planning Commission after visits by Rajiv Gandhi. Its first meeting was in Port Blair (1986).
  • It commissioned environmental studies of both island systems, which framed later plans. In Lakshadweep they led to rainwater harvesting in every home, solar lighting, inter-island helicopters and the Bangaram resort as the base of controlled tourism.
  • It met irregularly. By its tenth meeting (2003) the Planning Commission was preparing Development Reports for both UTs, and the Prime Minister stressed that mainland plans cannot be imposed on islands.
• 2002 turning point: a Supreme Court-appointed commission led by Shekhar Singh reported on threats to the Andamans. The Court then stopped commercial logging, curbed encroachment and regulated the Andaman Trunk Road.
• Post-2004 reconstruction after the tsunami added hazard-resistant housing, coastal setbacks and relocation of villages.
• Since 2017: the Islands Development Agency under the Home Minister, with NITI Aayog steering holistic development; Island Coastal Regulation Zone rules (2019); and the Great Nicobar Project.

Planning Frameworks

• Global frameworks for small islands shape planning ideas: Agenda 21 (1992) recognised small island states as a special case; the Barbados Programme of Action (1994), the Mauritius Strategy (2005) and the SAMOA Pathway (2014) followed; the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (2024) sets the agenda for 2024–34.
  • The SAMOA Pathway recast islands as “large ocean states”: small in land, large in sea.
  • The Eastern Caribbean Planning Framework (2022–26), of the Global Green Growth Institute and the OECS, is a regional model of climate action and green investment.
• Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM): plans land and sea together.
  • The French model (Guadeloupe, Martinique) treats the coast as a non-market public good and coordinates public programmes.
  • The Anglo-Saxon model (St Lucia) values natural capital, reefs and beaches, in money to rank investments.
• Ridge to Reef: manage the forest on the “ridge”, the slopes and the coast together so that soil erosion and pollution do not kill the “reef”. Its governance motto is “community to cabinet”.
• Island Coastal Regulation Zone (ICRZ) Notification, 2019 (after the Island Protection Zone Notification, 2011): requires Integrated Island Management Plans for A&N and Lakshadweep that zone coasts for protection, settlement, fisheries and tourism.
• Carrying capacity and zoning: set the population, visitors and building that each island can bear. Thematic tourism zones (diving, homestay, resort, no-go) prevent overloading of any one beach.
• Land Degradation Neutrality and integrated water resource management for slopes, soils and the water lens, drawing on indigenous farming and agroforestry, which stand up better to storms and drought than monocultures. Coastal protection adds artificial reefs and resilient seawalls to mangroves.
• Lessons from small island states:
  • Maldives: the “one island, one resort” model (from 1972) keeps tourists on uninhabited resort islands and away from local communities, though resort sprawl and debt are newer problems.
  • Mauritius: diversified from sugar to an export processing zone (1970), tourism and services, showing that islands can escape a single-sector economy.
  • Seychelles: issued the world’s first sovereign blue bond (2018) and a debt-for-nature swap to fund marine protected areas and sustainable fisheries.
  • The common lesson for India’s islands is to plan tourism and fisheries as part of ocean governance, with protected areas paid for by the economy they support.

Holistic Development of Islands (NITI Aayog, 2017 onward)

• The Islands Development Agency (IDA) was set up on 1 June 2017, chaired by the Union Home Minister. NITI Aayog was asked to steer the “holistic development of islands” with the UT administrations.
• First phase (2017): 10 islands. In A&N: Smith, Ross, Aves, Long and Little Andaman. In Lakshadweep: Minicoy, Bangaram, Suheli, Cheriyam and Thinnakara.
  • Later additions brought the list to 26 islands, including North Passage, Cinque, Neil, Rutland and Great Nicobar in A&N, and Kalpeni, Kadmat, Agatti, Chetlat and Bitra in Lakshadweep.
• Method: concept development and master plans based on sustainability, people’s participation, ecosystem preservation and carrying capacity: site suitability reports, environmental zoning and carrying-capacity studies for each island. It was the first such exercise in India.
• Components:
  • anchor tourism projects on public–private partnership (eco-resorts and water villas at Long, Smith, Aves, Suheli, Minicoy and Kadmat);
  • connectivity: jetties, Ro-Ro ferries, bridges on the Andaman Trunk Road, the Diglipur airstrip and a new airport at Minicoy;
  • digital links, green energy, desalination, waste management;
  • fisheries, including branding of Lakshadweep tuna.
• Restricted Area Permit rules for foreigners were relaxed for 29 inhabited A&N islands in 2018 to promote tourism.
• Critique: the programme was pitched as community-based tourism, yet planning was top-down and investor-led. Islanders raised concerns over land, culture and ecological limits, as in protests against the draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation, 2021.

Connectivity, Ports and Shipping

• Shipping is the lifeline. Passenger and cargo ships link Sri Vijaya Puram with Chennai, Kolkata and Visakhapatnam, and Kavaratti and other Lakshadweep islands with Kochi and Beypore. Inter-island ferries and Ro-Ro vessels connect the smaller islands.
• Ports: Sri Vijaya Puram is the main port; a deep-water transshipment terminal at Galathea Bay is planned in Great Nicobar.
• Air: Veer Savarkar International Airport (Sri Vijaya Puram; new terminal 2023), smaller airstrips at Car Nicobar, Diglipur and Campbell Bay; Agatti in Lakshadweep, with a dual-use airport proposed at Minicoy.
• Digital: the Chennai–Andaman and Nicobar submarine cable (2020) and the Kochi–Lakshadweep submarine cable (January 2024), 1,868 km to 11 islands, raised bandwidth from 1.7 Gbps to 200 Gbps.
• Roads: the Andaman Trunk Road links South, Middle and North Andaman. It passes through the Jarawa reserve, where traffic is regulated to limit contact; sea routes are being developed as alternatives.

Tourism and the Blue Economy

• Tourism potential: coral reefs, beaches, rainforest, mangroves, history (Cellular Jail, Ross Island) and sport (diving, snorkelling).
  • The Swadesh Darshan coastal circuit (2016–17) covered Long, Ross, Smith, Neil, Havelock, Baratang and Port Blair.
  • Havelock, Neil and Ross were renamed Swaraj Dweep, Shaheed Dweep and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep (2018).
  • Interest in Lakshadweep rose sharply after the Prime Minister’s visit in January 2024. The UT has kept its tourism controlled and permit-based because of water and land limits.
• Ecotourism suits islands best: low-volume, high-value, community-run homestays, reef-safe diving and carrying-capacity caps. Tribal areas and reserves stay closed to tourists.
• Blue economy: deep-sea and tuna fishing in the vast EEZ, mariculture, seaweed and ornamental fish, coconut-based products, marine biotechnology, and governance of future seabed mining through the International Seabed Authority.

Water and Energy

• Desalination: low-temperature thermal desalination (LTTD) plants, which use the temperature gap between warm surface and cold deep water, run at Kavaratti, Agatti and Minicoy. A plant at Kadmat (2024) supplies 1.5 lakh litres a day.
  • Every household in Agatti and Minicoy has a tap connection under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
• Energy: a battery-backed solar plant at Kavaratti (2024) is the first of its kind in Lakshadweep. A&N still relies mainly on diesel, with growing solar capacity.
• Ideas from small island states apply: solar with battery storage, hybrid grids and national energy roadmaps, as under IRENA’s SIDS Lighthouses Initiative, with its Quickscans. IRENA’s Project Navigator and the Global Atlas site appraisal help build bankable projects and screen solar and wind sites, and GIS tracks coastlines and watersheds.

The Great Nicobar Project

• The Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island, piloted by NITI Aayog and run by ANIIDCO, is the largest island project in India, estimated at about ₹81,000 crore.
• Rationale: Great Nicobar lies about 40 nautical miles from the East–West shipping route through the Six Degree Channel to the Malacca Strait. Galathea Bay has natural depths over 20 m. India’s transshipment cargo now passes through Colombo, Singapore and Klang.

• Clearances and litigation (to October 2026):
  • Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary was denotified (January 2021). Stage-I forest clearance came in October 2022 and environmental clearance in November 2022, with 42 conditions and three monitoring committees.
  • The National Green Tribunal refused to interfere in April 2023 but set up a high-powered committee to re-examine gaps. In a second round, in February 2026, it again found no ground to interfere.
  • A PIL before the Calcutta High Court alleges violation of the Forest Rights Act: Shompen and Nicobarese rights were not settled before forest diversion. The court rejected the Centre’s objection to the petition in May 2026.
  • On 5 October 2026 the Supreme Court refused to stay the High Court case and asked it to hear the matter, set for 25–26 November 2026. The project is therefore cleared but under judicial scrutiny.
• Official safeguards: no relocation of tribal habitations; 76.98 sq km re-notified as tribal reserve against 73.07 sq km denotified; 65.99 sq km kept as green zones; at most 7.11 lakh of 18.65 lakh trees felled, in phases; compensatory afforestation of 97.30 sq km in Haryana; new sanctuaries for leatherback turtles, corals and megapodes.
• Concerns:
  • Ecology: loss of primary rainforest, the leatherback turtle nesting beaches and Nicobar megapode habitat at Galathea, and reef damage; afforestation in Haryana cannot replace island rainforest.
  • Seismic risk: the island lies on an active subduction zone and subsided in 2004.
  • Tribal rights: the Shompen (about 237) and the Nicobarese (about 1,094 on the island). The tribal council withdrew its consent in November 2022, citing misinformation, and seeks return to villages abandoned after the tsunami. The Shompen Policy (2015) requires large projects to put the tribe’s welfare first.
• Assessment: a test of whether strategic and economic gains can be pursued through phased, carrying-capacity-based, rights-compliant planning in one of the world’s most sensitive islands.

Tribal Area Development in the Islands

• Lakshadweep follows the main-plan approach: with STs at 94.8%, the whole UT plan is a tribal plan and no sub-plan is needed.
• A&N has one ITDP for its scheduled tribes. Its five PVTGs are protected through tribal reserves under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, which bars outsiders and land transfer.
  • The Jarawa Policy (2004) and Shompen Policy (2015) favour minimal, consent-based intervention and protection from contact: outside diseases can be fatal to small groups. The Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti delivers welfare.
  • Nicobar district has seven tribal councils and 53 tribal village councils.
• PM-JANMAN (2023) covers island PVTGs with health outreach, drinking water and off-grid solar, delivered with caution, while the Dharti Aaba mission (2024) extends saturation to tribal-majority villages across 30 States and UTs.
• Island tribes sit at the protective end of India’s tribal area development: protection comes before development, because contact, disease and loss of land, the core problems of tribal areas, can destroy groups of a few hundred people.
• The basic problems of island peoples are poverty, low living standards, malnutrition and long exploitation by outsiders. Van Dhan Vikas Kendras are to add value to island produce such as coconut.

Way Forward

• Ridge-to-reef spatial plans: integrated island management plans that zone forest, coast and sea together, with carrying capacity as the ceiling for population, tourism and building.
• Ecology first in fragile zones: protect primary forests, reefs, mangroves and nesting beaches; restore mangroves and reefs as nature-based coastal defence; avoid irreversible works in the highest-risk zones; bring more forest under national parks and biosphere reserves; afforest degraded land against soil erosion under heavy rain.
• Climate and hazard resilience: hazard maps, setback lines, earthquake-proof and resilient buildings and infrastructure, early warning, and protection of freshwater lenses.
• Blue and green economy: value-added fisheries (tuna, mariculture, seaweed), coconut, arecanut and coir processing, forest-based cottage industries and handicrafts, plantations of arecanut, cinchona, tea and pineapple; 100% renewable power with storage; desalination and rainwater harvesting.
• Sustainable tourism: low-volume, high-value ecotourism; community homestays; thematic zones; strict limits near reserves.
• Connectivity: reliable shipping and air links, Ro-Ro services, digital education and telemedicine, and better distribution from the capitals to other islands, all of which reduce brain drain.
• Rights and participation: consent-based, transparent decisions with “community to cabinet” governance; full compliance with the FRA and the 1956 Regulation; tribal welfare placed above project timelines.
• Strategy with sustainability: defence and port projects phased, monitored independently and reviewed against ecological and social thresholds, consistent with sustainable regional planning and the environmental safeguards of regional planning.