Mumbai: An isolated island along the Mymbai port would be developed in order to promote Lighthouse Tourism.
The Island called Khanderi also has a majestic fort of Shivaji’s times and a 150-year-old lighthouse built by the British.
“Our effort is to add one more destination for people of the city and also visitors,” Minister of State for Shipping and MP from Mumbai South constituency Milind Deora told reporters on the island over the weekend.
The fort on ‘Kanhoji Angre Island’ (earlier called Khanderi, but now renamed after the admiral of King Shivaji’s navy), spread over 18 acres off the coast of Thal near Alibag, an hour’s boat ride from Gateway of India here, has a 17 metre tall lighthouse.
The land is owned by the Mumbai Port Trust and now the ministry plans to invite bids from private players to develop the fort as a tourist haunt.
At present, locals visit it to offer prayers at a temple on the island, but it is largely absent on the tourism map. It has attractions such as canons, including one placed on a set of wheels, and a very rich perimeter fortification. “It will be a public private partnership on a revenue share basis and we will make sure that the winning bidder does not charge excessively…it cannot be an elitist project,” Deora said, adding that the project report made by IL&FS entails an investment of Rs 38 crore and envisages internal rate of return of 17 per cent.
Ferry services to the island are set to start in a couple of years as a part of the Ministry of Shipping’s ‘lighthouse tourism policy’. “The advantage for the project is the proximity to Mumbai, and Alibag already being a tourist destination,” Deora said.
The bidding will be over in the next six months and it will take another 18 months before the project is thrown open to the general public, he said. Angre was instrumental in converting islands along the western coast as forts. The British took over the island by the mid 19th century and built the lighthouse in 1852.