An 1,868 Kilometre Undersea Cable Linked Eleven Lakshadweep Islands to Kochi on 3 January 2024, in a Union Territory of 32 Square Kilometres Where 94.8 Per Cent of Residents Are Scheduled Tribes

A submarine optical fibre cable 1,868 kilometres long was inaugurated at Kavaratti on 3 January 2024 and links eleven Lakshadweep islands to Kochi, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) says. The Cabinet note of 9 December 2020 that approved it records that the territory’s only telecom link until then was by satellite, with bandwidth limited to 1 gigabit per second. The territory it serves covers 32 square kilometres of land, which Business Standard calls the smallest of India’s Union territories (areas the Centre administers directly).

The Census of India’s 2011 block-wise table for Lakshadweep adds up to 64,473 residents, of whom 61,120, about 94.8 per cent, are recorded as Scheduled Tribes (communities the Constitution lists for special protection). Census figures here are from 2011 because the next census is under way.

How the islands became a Union territory

Section 6 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 formed a Union territory from “the appointed day”, 1 November 1956, out of the Laccadive and Minicoy Islands in Malabar district and the Amindivi Islands in South Kanara district, and said the islands thereupon ceased to be part of the State of Madras. Section 60 extended the Kerala High Court’s jurisdiction to them from the same day.

Its name then was the Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands. The Alteration of Name Act, 1973 (Act 34 of 1973) changed it to Lakshadweep from 1 November 1973, and the same Act amended the Constitution’s First Schedule and Article 240 to use the new name. The administration’s own page says its Secretariat moved from Kozhikode to Kavaratti in March 1964.

How Lakshadweep is governed

Article 239 says a Union territory is administered by the President through an administrator the President appoints. Lakshadweep has no legislature. Article 239A, which lets Parliament create a legislature or council of ministers, names only Puducherry. Article 240 instead lets the President make regulations “for the peace, progress and good government” of Lakshadweep, and clause (2) says such a regulation may repeal or amend any Act of Parliament or other law applying there and has the same force as an Act of Parliament. Our comparison of the eight Union territories sets the same arrangement beside Delhi, Puducherry and the rest.

The administration’s page says the Administrator also commands the Lakshadweep Police as its Inspector General. The Collector-cum-Development Commissioner is the District Magistrate, and the entire territory counts as one district, with ten sub-divisions and five community development blocks at Kavaratti, Amini, Andrott, Minicoy and Kiltan. That page was last updated on 13 April 2018.

Local government is elected. The Lakshadweep Panchayats Regulation, 1994, promulgated by the President on 23 April 1994 and in force from 23 May 1995, provides one village (dweep) panchayat on each of the ten inhabited islands and one district panchayat. The first village panchayats were constituted in December 2002 and the district panchayat in January 2003. The district panchayat has 22 directly elected members, the ten village chairpersons and the territory’s Member of Parliament.

In Parliament, the First Schedule of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 gives Lakshadweep one Lok Sabha seat, reserved for a Scheduled Tribe candidate. The Constitution’s Fourth Schedule allots it no Rajya Sabha seat. The delimitation article explains how Lok Sabha seats are shared out.

Ten islands and 64,473 people

The administration describes an archipelago of 12 atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks, with ten inhabited islands, 17 uninhabited attached islets and four newly formed islets, lying roughly 220 to 440 kilometres from Kochi in the Arabian Sea. Its lagoon covers about 4,200 square kilometres, its territorial waters about 20,000 and its exclusive economic zone about 4 lakh (400,000) square kilometres. Business Standard puts the island count at 36.

Kavaratti, where the Secretariat sits, had 11,221 residents in 2011. Andrott had 11,191, Minicoy 10,447 and Bitra, the smallest inhabited island, 271. The Census table records no Scheduled Caste residents in the territory. The administration says the entire indigenous population is classified as Scheduled Tribes under a 1956 order and gives the 2011 population as 64,429, a slightly different figure from the Census table’s sum. Calculated from the same table, about 91.9 per cent of residents aged seven and over were literate.

Malayalam is spoken on every island except Minicoy, where people speak Mahl, written in the Divehi script and also spoken in the Maldives. Visitors who are not islanders need an entry permit, including Indian citizens, Outlook Traveller reported on 7 May 2026. It also reported that a sponsor and a police clearance certificate are no longer needed for tourist applications.

A fishing economy built on tuna

The administration lists fishing, coconut cultivation and coir twisting as the main occupations. Fish production rose from about 500 tonnes in the 1950s to 16,891 tonnes in 2024-25, according to the Department of Fisheries’ page, which calls tuna the primary fishery resource. The same page says the pole-and-line method of catching tuna, in which fishers hook fish one at a time from a boat, is found only in Lakshadweep within India.

The department reports anchored fish aggregating devices (floating structures that draw fish together), eight ice plants and three cold storages. Every inhabited island now has a registered fisheries cooperative, and the Minicoy Tuna Canning Factory has been outsourced to private entrepreneurs. A seaweed cluster project has in-principle approval for a hatchery and seed bank, with community demonstrations by ten self-help groups across nine islands.

The Lakshadweep Marine Fisheries Regulation, 2026, promulgated by the President under Article 240 and published in the Gazette on 20 February 2026, lets the Administrator notify specified areas within territorial waters and regulate vessels, gear, fish aggregating devices, species and fishing periods there. It requires a licence for fishing in those areas, and tells the Administrator to have regard to exempting country crafts and other small vessels from licensing. Its text says it comes into force on a date the Administrator appoints by notification.

The lagoon that sustains the fishery is a coral system. Our reef survey piece sets out the bleaching and recovery record since 1998.

What the cable changed

The Cabinet approved the Kochi to Lakshadweep Islands submarine cable on 9 December 2020 at an estimated Rs 1,072 crore including five years of running costs, funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund and carried out by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, with a completion target of May 2023. The PIB release of 3 January 2024 says the work was awarded to NEC Corporation India through global tendering and gives the cost as Rs 1,072 crore plus taxes.

It lands at Kavaratti, Agatti, Amini, Kadmat, Chetlat, Kalpeni, Minicoy, Androth, Kiltan, Bangaram and Bitra. The PIB’s release on the day’s projects puts internet speed at 1.7 gigabits per second before and 200 after, and lists fibre-to-the-home and 4G and 5G mobile networks among the services. The Cabinet note named telemedicine, e-governance, fisheries, coconut industries and tourism among the expected uses.

What comes next on land and planning

Business Standard notes that with limited land available, ownership of even small parcels carries weight, and planning rules are where views differ most. A draft Lakshadweep Town and Country Planning Regulation, 2021, published by the administration in April 2021 under Article 240, would let the Government declare any area a planning area, and says land designated in a development plan counts as needed for a public purpose under the Right to Fair Compensation Act, 2013. ThePrint reported on 28 May 2021 that the Home Ministry was scrutinising three further drafts: on detention of anti-social persons, on cattle slaughter and on panchayat elections. The Collector defended the detention draft on law-and-order grounds, the cattle draft as a way to preserve milch animals and the panchayat draft by pointing to the islands’ population density. Congress, NCP and CPI(M) leaders called the detention draft draconian, and opposition parties alleged communal motives behind the cattle draft. Bar and Bench reported on 18 June 2021 that the Kerala High Court dismissed a petition against the drafts as premature.

In 2026 the Gazette carried the marine fisheries rules above, and Business Standard reports that a Lakshadweep Town and Country Planning and Development Regulation, 2026 came into force on 29 July 2026 under an administration notification. Chennai Online reports that officials say it will improve infrastructure, support tourism, protect the environment and ensure planned development, while residents and unnamed legal experts fear less local control over land and harder court challenges.

On 5 August 2026 Justice T. R. Ravi of the Kerala High Court set aside the Collector’s order of 27 June 2024 to take possession of pandaram land (government-owned land held by islanders under old lease arrangements), Business Standard reports. It adds that the court held the 2023 amendment deleting Section 15A of the 1965 land regulation unconstitutional for want of consultation with the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, and directed the Administrator to confer occupancy rights on qualifying cowledars (leaseholders) within six months, which falls in early February 2027.