Draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021

Description

GS Paper II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context: In Widespread resentment in Lakshadweep over latest draft regulation for the creation of a Lakshadweep Development Authority (LDA).

It is widely resented by residents as unsustainable, socially, politically or ecologically.
The people suspect that this might have been issued at the behest of ‘real estate interests’.

What is the issue?

Lakshadweep Administrator Praful Khoda Patel is facing opposition from the people of the union territory and politicians — both from within Lakshadweep and neighbouring Kerala — over policies introduced by him since his appointment in December 2020.
The contentious regulations include the
- Draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021 (LDAR) — which gives the administrator powers to remove or relocate islanders from their property, for town planning or any developmental activity;
- Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA)2021, under which a person can be detained without any public disclosure for a period of up to one year and
- Draft Panchayat notification, where a member with more than two children is disqualified from being a member.
- Lakshadweep Animals Preservation Regulation’ that bans cattle slaughter and trade that affects the islanders’ choice of food and livelihood. It also put restriction on use of alcohol in the Union Territory.
Hundreds of islanders have written to the administrator demanding that the proposed regulation be withdrawn.
A majority of them (94.8% as per the 2011 census) belonging to the Scheduled Tribes.

Draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021 (LDAR)

The regulation empowers the government, identified as the administrator, to constitute Planning and Development Authorities under it to plan the development of any area identified as having “bad layout or obsolete development”.
Only cantonment areas are exempted from this.
An authority thus created would be a body corporate with a government-appointed chairman, a town planning officer and three ‘expert’ government nominees besides two local authority representatives.
These authorities are to prepare land use maps, carry out zonation for type of land use and indicate areas for ‘proposed national highways, arterial roads, rings roads, major streets, railways, airports, theatres, museums, playgrounds etc.

Points of contentions:

LDA regulation says that the authority can prepare comprehensive development plans for any area and relocate people regardless of their will.
It provides for forcible eviction, puts the onus on the owner to develop his holding as per the plan prepared by the authority.
The regulation can destroy the way of life of closely-knit group practised by these island community for generations.
Proposals to bring real estate development concepts such as ‘transferable development rights’ to the island have raised the concerns of people who feared forced eviction.
This regulation is neither ecologically sustainable nor socially viable and the people’s representatives were not consulted before drafting it.
It comes alongwith the ‘Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation’, a ‘goonda act’, in the Dweep which is known for the lowest crime rate in the country, that widen up the trust deficit.

About Lakshadweep

Lakshadweep, the group of 36 islands is India’s smallest Union Territory.
It is a uni-district Union Territory and is comprised of 12 atolls, three reefs, five submerged banks and ten inhabited islands.
The capital is Kavaratti.
Lakshadweep has a tropical climate.
Coconut palms are the agricultural mainstay of Lakshadweep. Fishing also forms a major segment of the territory’s economy, with tuna as the primary catch.
The territory is led by an administrator, who is appointed by the president of India.
Lakshadweep consists of a single district, with four subdivisions. The territory falls under the jurisdiction of the Kerala High Court.
The Nine Degree Channel is a channel in the Indian Ocean between the Laccadive Islands of Kalpeni and Suheli Par, and Maliku Atoll. These two subgroups of islands, together with the Amindivi Subgroup, form the Indian Union Territory (UT) of Lakshadweep.