Feel Good Factors: Kerala

While spending a considerable time in Kochi lake, we had a close view of Kochi Island also known as Willingdon Island and the Kochi Port. Some of these pictures say the story.

Day 3 [At Kochi]

The port lies on two islands in the Lake of Kochi: Willingdon Island and Vallarpadam, towards the Fort Kochi river mouth opening onto the Arabian Sea.

Kochi Lake is the portion of the Vembanad Lake located in and around the Kochi mainland. Among the several groups of small islands that the Kochi Lake forms home are, Vypin, Mulavukad, Vallarpadam, Willingdon Island etc. Kochi Lake is home for the Kochi Port which is build around the Willingdon Island, as well as the Vallarpadam island.

Willingdon Island is an island, which forms part of the city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, India. Much of the present Willingdon Island was claimed from the Lake of Kochi, filling in dredged soil around a previously existing, but tiny, natural island. Willingdon Island is significant as the home for the Port of Kochi, as well as the Kochi Naval Base (the Southern Naval Command) of the Indian Navy and Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, a constituent unit of Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

Willingdon Island contains the modern port, serving Cochin city, Kerala. The island is an artificial man-made island created from the sand dug out while deepening Kochi port. It has been named after Lord Willingdon, the former Madras governor, who was instrumental in implementing this island project. The main engineer spearheading this project, however, was Robert Bristow. A port hostel was built to accommodate passengers who wished to halt for a short while and it was named the Malabar Hotel.

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. By the year 1960, the traffic had almost doubled. It is a major artificial port in India and a landmark in the Kochi city of Kerala. Willingdon Island also serves as a link between the city and some other seaports of the world.