Islands Development Agency to focus on Holistic Development

Islands Development Agency (IDA) that was set up on June 1, 2017 following the Prime Minister’s review meeting for the development of islands, with focus on Holistic Development of Islands had its first meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh on Monday July 24, 2017, who presented vision of developing India’s maritime economy while preserving natural eco-system, addressing security concerns with emphasis on need for sustainable development of Islands with people’s participation. Such an exercise is being taken up for the first time in the country.

NITI Aayog is preparing Concept Development Plans and Detailed Master Plans for identified islands with focus on:

• Principles of sustainability,
• People’s participation,
• Eco-system preservation and
• Determination of carrying capacity as the guiding principles.

India has a total of 1382 offshore islands and in the first phase 10 islands namely: Smith, Ross, Aves, Long and Little Andaman in Andaman & Nicobar; and Minicoy, Bangaram, Suheli, Cherium and Tinnakara in Lakshadweep have been identified for holistic development.

Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi had earlier chaired a high-level meeting on September 20, 2016 and reviewed the steps taken towards holistic development of islands and was informed that the developmental activities shall be centred on basic infrastructure, tourism, agriculture -including organic agriculture & fisheries, and carbon-neutral energy generation. The focus will also be to increase economic activity through mining and maritime activity in these places by ensuring basic needs of clean drinking water, electricity and birthing facilities etc. These islands are important from the security point of view for India – considering their proximity to Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea and countries such as Pakistan.

Prime Minister emphasized strategic importance of India’s island wealth and stressed on the potential for tourism in these areas. Urging the officials to speedily firm up plans for island development, he said that solar energy should be used extensively in this exercise.

• India’s quest for economic prosperity through oceans is a part of our larger efforts to transform India
• “Sagar” which means “Ocean” and stands for – Security And Growth for All in the Region Policy
• Blue Economy is an essential part of this pursuit in the development of India’s coastal and island territories
• Blue Economy is the integration of Water based Economy including Inland Water Body & Ocean Economy development with the principles of social inclusion, environmental sustainability and innovative, dynamic business models.
• Strengthening our marine research, development of eco friendly, marine industrial and technology base, and fisheries are other elements of our goal
• We need to make an exhaustive list of untapped natural resources, the potential of which we could fully exploit.
• The optimized utilization of natural resources, such as solar energy, should be the way forward for charting out a growth strategy for India, futuristic planning to ensure that the development of India’s natural and human resources Pioneer innovative, out-of-the-box thinking for the nation’s development