Photo story of the Island, a heritage Kochi owns since 1936
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.
Anubha George is a former BBC editor & journalist from England. She has worked extensively in the media in both India & in the UK, including the BBC World Service. Now based in Kochi, she is a Consulting editor at FWD magazine, guest lectures at various educational institutions on media, journalism & communication & writes for various other outlets. Anubha also trains start ups in how to increase their reach in the media, especially social media; helps companies put their social media strategy. She also advises & consults on branding & making a company & product visible. She also leads workshops in leadership & communication. Anubha lives her life by the motto: have courage & be kind.
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.
The Cruise Passenger Facilitation Center of Cochin Port Trust, now known as Samudrika Convention centre.The Port was inaugurated by Prof K V Thomas, Hon’ble Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution on 12 October 2012. Cochin Port has been a pioneer in promoting cruise tourism and has witnessed an encouraging growth in the arrival of luxury cruise liners to its shore.
It was Sir Bristow ‘s ambition, skill, determination that changed the face of an old port. He created a modern port of Cochin, with the safest inner harbour, exactly 98 years ago. This was a port where the ships were berthed offshore with cargo loading and unloading being done using lighters. In 1941, Sir Bristow who came to Cochin in 1920 transformed Cochin as the safest harbour in the peninsula, where ships berthed alongside the newly reclaimed inner harbour, equipped with a long array of steam cranes.
Dilapidated buildings and abandoned quarters in the Willingdon Island is a very sorry sight now. Earlier these quarters provided shelter to officers who worked in many projects associated with Willingdon Island. But now the weeds and creepers hold sway and one hardly can recognize the existence of an active resodential area which it was once upon a time.
Once active office spaces in the island have now shut down or shifted to the city centre. Robert Bristow, the chief protagonist and engineer for the project, owned the first building on the island. Today the entire land belongs to Cochin Port Trust and Indian Navy.
Cochin Harbour Terminus railway station was built mainly for handling the cargo from Cochin Harbour. Tea, coffee, coir, cotton and other export consignments came here by wagonloads from the harbour, to be loaded to distant destinations around the world. Its strategic location made it a strong revenue-pulling base for freight traffic. Cochin Harbour Terminus railway station suffered a major setback in 1978, when Thiruvananthapuram was selected over Kochi as the base station of Southern India Railways.
This Terminus had been the principal station providing rail connectivity to the southern segment of the Port of Kochi located on the Willingdon Island. Now, Cochin Harbour Treminus Railway station is not in use after the commissioning of Vallarpadam container terminus. The station is now locked and all the trains to this station from Ernakulam Junction were stopped in 2013. Currently this station is under renovation for the suburban rail networks in Kochi.
The Island was extremely well planned and well designed, much ahead of the time. A deep wharf, a rail bridge and a road bridge connecting to the mainland were made to provide valuable infrastructure for the local war effort. The Willingdon Island also serves as a link between the city and some other seaports of the world.
When the British withdrew from India after independence in 1947, they left behind an indispensable and significant transport hub. During its short colonial tenure, the Willingdon Island in Cochin handled almost one million tons of freight and by the year 1960, the traffic had almost doubled. It is a major artificial port in India and serves as a major landmark in the Kochi city of Kerala.
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.