Kochi International Marina gets a facelift

Kochi International Marina near Bolgatty Palace renovated to attract seafarers, facing challenges due to lack of funds and policy clarity.

KOCHI

The Kochi International Marina near the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation’s Bolgatty Palace and Resort has got a much-needed facelift, thanks to the preening-up that was done prior to the recent demo seaplane service from there to the Mattupetty dam in Idukki.

The preening-up included the repair of the wooden decks of the marina that was commissioned in 2010 with berthing space for 34 yachts. This has resulted in yachters and others being able to safely walk through the decks whose planks had suffered extensive damage during the past few years.

Sources said that over time the number of seafarers from different countries who called at the marina had come down owing to inadequate upkeep, the need to dredge the backwaters around the marina, and piracy-related incidents off the Somali coast. “The repair works of the deck and the corridor that leads to the marina from the adjacent Marina House that has rooms will hopefully reignite interest among seafarers. Preventive maintenance and dredging are crucial to ensuring that the marina — the premier international marina in India — remains in operable form all through the year and is able to host bigger yachts,” they added.

While acknowledging that the marina, the Bolgatty Palace, and Resort held an edge over other luxury hotel properties owing to their island-like location, despite being a stone’s throw away from the city, a senior official of Kerala Tourism said their full-fledged renovation was hamstrung due to paucity of funds.

Sources in the KTDC said the hotel was last renovated in 1999. Proposals and revised estimates to do full-fledged renovation works of the hotel, the marina and the Marina House for approximately ₹20 crore were sent to the State government many times, but to little avail, with fund paucity being cited as a reason to not allocate funds.

Even efforts to execute the renovation on a public-private partnership mode failed to take off, mainly due to want of a clear policy. A similar predicament also led to the marina not being handed over to the city-based Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC). The agency was keen to operate the Marina House as well, which decision-makers were not willing to hand over. However, despite the delay in renovating the hotel and marina, the property has been getting very good income, mainly in the form of patronage for rooms and the convention centre on the vast premises, they said.