23 February 2008

Making a giant safe-island by reclaiming the whole of Vaavu Atoll!

Vaavu Atoll the smallest administrative atoll in the Maldives. There are about 19 islands in the atoll but only five of those islands are populated; and the whole atoll has a population of only 2300. But the government has to bear the overheads of an Atoll Office and many Island Offices and Schools and Power Houses and other infrastructure to support only 2300 people scattered across the sea of Vaavu Atoll. This is bad economies of scale. This is also against the spirit of decentralization.
Here I would like to put forward an extremely radical (and perhaps controversial) proposal. I propose to relocate the under 2300 people of Vaavu Atoll to a bigger atoll, provide housing for the residents and compensate them adequately. After this relocation, I propose to reclaim the whole atoll by doing deep-sea dredging. The reclaiming should be done to a height of at least ten feet above sea level. This landmass would be big enough to accommodate at least a population of three hundred thousand. This would be a huge landmass (one island) - the ultimate safe-island which could accommodate almost 300,000 people. We could open for international bid and get a foreign party to reclaim and then build infrastructure there as well.
Like in Dubai we could sell land and housing plots and apartments and office space to international individuals and international organizations from there. This would be a multi-billion dollar project that could bring incredible revenue to us.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous27/2/08 11:36

    Well that cud be feasible in a financial aspect but in a more anthropological aspect the people aer not ready to move!!! Relocation of population on a consolidation effort will be ideal for not only Vaavu but many other atolls as well and islands!!!
    The people need to understand it which the gvt of now has failed !!!!

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