Visit to Lakshadweep

Recently along with Mr. Shalender Sharma (of DISE Project) I visited Kavaratti, the capital of UT Lakshadweep having a population of 8000 only. The total population of the entire island is around 60 thousand which is much lower than the population of Adchini and Katwaria Sarai, the localities in South Delhi. About 98 percent of the Lakshadweep population is Muslim and they speak Malayalam.

First thing first, reaching Kavaratti is not simple। One has to first reach Cochin and from Cochin, Agatti, a small island of Lakshadweep having around 5000 population. In the monsoon season, one can reach Kavaratti from Agatti only by Helicopter. In the fair season, other mode of transportation such as ship, steamers and boats are also available. The Helicopter service is actually the medical ambulance and hence can be diverted any time to Cochin to ferry patients. Because of this we too had to stay overnight in Agatti. Fortunately, Agatti has a brand new State Guest House which is under expansion and have all facilities like, AC, TV etc. The mobile signals are generally found to be weak in the island. Getting all such facilities in such a small island is like five star accommodation in any big city. The cook served us reasonably good Dinner and Breakfast, the next morning.

Practically within half an hour we moved around Agatti and came back to the Guest House। We were still not sure about our flight to Kavaratti, the next morning. Initially we were told that the Helicopter may not come to Agatti, as it is still in the Cochin. Than we were informed that it would first go to Kavaratti, take fuel and then would be under maintenance. We were worried about the Workshop (on DISE, 3rd of August 2008) in the afternoon at Kavaratti. The DC, Agatti was helpful in ensuring that we would get the seats in the first sortie. Finally, we could able to reach Kavaratti by 1 pm. It took only 12-13 minutes to reach Kavaratti by Helicopter. By this way we lost half day as we could start the Workshop only by 2 pm. We in Delhi are habitual of frequent power cuts but power in the Lakshadweep is very consistent. Electricity in the island is generated through the Generators. Everything, except fish and coconut comes from the mainland and therefore is costly compared to the same in the mainland. For example, petrol is around 85 Rs./Lt. We were welcomed with the fresh coconut water in the comfortable State Guest House. Unlike in other costal cities, one need not go far to reach sea beach. In Kavaratti, both sides of the road have beach. Off late many resorts have come up and most of them are fully booked for the coming season starting September.

Now let me come to the point, the purpose of our visit to the island, was to conduct the Workshop on District Information System for Education, a system developed by NUEPA and MHRD/GoI to collect information from all the recognized schools imparting elementary education across the country. Each district and the state has been covered under the system; they collect, feed, use and disseminate information through various modes (http://www.dise.in/) and (schoolreportcards.in). But for Lakshadweep, we at NUEPA, New Delhi used to feed the information at the national level, as it was difficult for the UT to manage data feeding at their end. Unlike UP, Lakshadweep has only 34 schools, compared to 1.70 lakh such schools in UP. Lakshadweep has only 3 blocks, 8 islands and one district. All the officers and a few Principles of Kavaratti and Agatti participated in the Workshop. It was first time that we interacted directly with the School Principles, the respondents in the DISE operation. We found that Principals are well aware about educational development in the UT. In case of a school, the Principal reported that the information filled-in through the format is supplied by the CRC Co-coordinator but agreed that the same is correct. We are hopeful that the Date Entry Operators would now handle data entry and we need not to feed the data at the national level. We too visited a few schools and seen mid-day (coked one: rice, dal, papadam and pickle) meal been served which was started in the UT way back in 1956; earlier than Tamil Nadu. The School Principal informed us that he too had mid-day meal during his school days. However, the quality of food in those days was much better them the same these days. Most of the children in the UT are enrolled and schools are better equipped than the same in the mainland. Every school has 6-7 teacher and equal number of classrooms. There is hardly any space/land available for expansion. Lakshadweep doesn’t have DIET and are heavily dependant on Kerala. The UT is also using Kerala’s textbooks.

Our return journey was also quite uncertain. It took almost 12 hrs to reach Delhi but it was worth visiting the UT. We were told that we were the first from NUEPA to ever visit and conduct a Workshop in the island.

You may like to visit the island.