Text: Anubha George Images: Ashik Vijayan
Business owners & residents of Willingdon Island are calling for it to be restored to its past glory. Willingdon Island is the largest man-made island in India & forms part of the city of Kochi in the southern state of Kerala. One of the most important offices in Kochi is located on “the island”, as it’s popularly known. It is home to the office of the Cochin Port Trust, which is in charge of all port activities in the city. There are also export- import warehouses, a few upmarket hotels & business centres. Willingdon Island came into being partly out of necessity & partly out of one man’s vision. The then Governor of Madras, Lord Willingdon, thought up this idea of creating a port where ships could harbour once the Suez canal opened up. The British engineer, Sir Robert Bristow studied the tidal patterns, sea currents etc. He then designed & finally made the island a reality. This was 1936. Today, almost 90 years on, the once busy & buzzing port is now quiet, says WC Thomas, a tea tester, who’s been on the island since the 1960s. The facilities of the island are being leased out to cement manufacturing giants like Ambuja cement & Ultratech.
The entire port activity was moved to nearby Vallarpadam in 2011. P Narayanan, a business partner with the shipping company, Chakkiyat group, says businesses have to adapt to the changing times. He understands that Willingdon Island is not what it used to be. But says each business has to look to the future. Kochi is the business centre of the southern Indian state of Kerala. The last couple of years have seen a lot of money coming in to the city, making it one of the fastest growing cities in India. The World Bank has put Kochi as one of the top 17 industrial cities in the country. The entire focus of the economy of the city is the service sector. This includes ship building, seafood & spices export, tourism, health, information technology & banking. On top of that, there’s a lot of NRI money being pumped into Kochi, especially in real estate.
Kochi is also considered an easy city to start & operate a business. A report by leading businesses put it higher than Kolkata when it comes to compliance, labour laws & the convenience of hiring people to work for you. Kochi has one big advantage over other ports in India. And that is its strategic location on international sea routes. For example, it is closer to the Suez canal compared to other ports such as Chennai or Mumbai, which are further away. It is also closer to the Middle east trade route. This has made Kochi a centre for trade down the centuries. Some residents feel the island is on its way down. One of these is MrPrakash, who’s worked for Tata Tea since the nineties. He says the island has huge potential in terms of real estate. That may be the case. But the land once owned by the British is now the property of the Indian government.
Some others like C S Kartha, a local businessman & KC Philip, is pessimistic about the future. He’d like more help with their projects & for Willingdonisland to be the business hub it once was. There is good news, though. The Cochin Port Trust is planning to make Willingdon island the centre of boating tourism in Kochi. The idea is to have a place on the island that will provide boating routes around Mattancherry, Fort Kochi, Bolgatty, Muziris, Thevara, Vytilla hub & Infopark. Other popular destinations like Kumarakom & Alleppey will also be on this map. This will work on a public-private partnership model. For KC Philip, who owns a petrol station here, this is surely good news.
Credits: We thank Cochin Chamber of Commerce for assisting in coordination with the contributors for their comments for the story. Special thanks to Shaji Varghese, Chairman, Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Eapen Kalapurakal, Cochin Chamber of Commerce.