Visting Lakshadweep: Permit Complexity, Cost & other issues!

While Lakshadweep has gained lots of attention and interest recently, visiting Lakshadweep is an unnecessarily complicated & very expensive process.

• If you wish to spend a night at Agatti, the main island where airport is, you need a police clearance letter stating you've no court case against you.
  
• If you are NOT staying in Agatti but taking boat to other islands like Bangaram via Agatti, then Police clearance is NOT needed, just a "Permit" is needed. Agents ask 1500-2000 INR to process your permit.
  
• Stay in Lakshadweep is insanely expensive starting 10000 INR per night, going up to 20-25k or more per night.
• Travel between islands is also a challenge. Private boat transfer costs 7000-8000 INR. There're no public ferries that we can hop on after buying a ticket.
• Mainland India to Agatti flight is fine- if you are lucky you will get a return ticket for under 10k per person (Fly91 has cheap flight from Goa, Alliance Air, Indigo fly from Kochi & BLR)- Factor 10-15k for flights
• Just a 3 night package including 1 Night at Bangaram, 2 nights at P including meals, boat transfer will cost you 70-75k per person. For a couple, factor 1 lakh rupee total expense just for a 3 day trip.

In 1 lakh rupee, we can do a trip to Vietnam, Srilanka, Thailand, Maldives, Bali and other places which are affordable, have easy visa norms and have great beaches and places to explore.

The permit system is crazy. The official website https://epermit.utl.gov.in/ doesn't have an option called tourism. 

It asks for ration card number of the local host. There is no way we can apply on our own bypassing agents. Have to go through agents only and pay what they ask. My guess is travel agents who provide invite letter give fake declaration that tourist is their friend/relative.

What happens if a person with court case is allowed into Agatti- do you think they will swim away and escape to Dubai? With per night stay costing 10-20k+, they will soon return to main land. How hard it is for local administration to find a person in those small islands if really needed. There is hardly anything to hide. Those who prefer to hide from law won't go to Lakshadweep.  We can get visa for so many countries online. Those who have US/UK/Canada visa can enter several other countries with ease. Why can't Govt simply the permit system, make it online, self service?

Person with a court case or anyone can go to Andaman without any paperwork. Why Lakshadweep is kept so complex?

Lakshadweep has its own constraints-it has limited resources in terms of water supply, hospitals etc. Everything has to come from mainland. So it is understandable they wish to limit the number of tourists- for that an easy process would be to issue a token on first come-first serve basis instead of keeping an extremely complicated process.

Several ferries are also announced- like this Mangaluru-Lakshadweep ferry- but it is not clear where to check their schedule, availability and book.

Cordella's lakshadweep cruise is an option- no stay involved, just visit during day time and return to ship-but even that starts from 37000 per person (min 2 pax charged) + taxes and extra + cost of traveling to start city, so easily 1 lakh for 2 pax. 

Easemytrip was promoting Lakshadweep a lot after Maldives fiasco- but even they don't have a land package. Only Ex-Kochi package with 1 night in Kochi for permit processing.

Most of the travel agents lose interest moment they learn you're a budget traveler. They only prefer rich tourists who don't mind spending a few lakhs.

For now I've shelved my Lakshadweep plan. Not keen to spend a lakh for 3-4 days. I want to go someday but not at current level of cost and complexity. Airlines should offer a flight option that lets us see Lakshadweep from top- like fly from BOM to Trivandrum with low flying over Lakshadweep or Book a ticket to Lakshadweep and return to mainland on same flight, without getting off the plane- just be content with what you can see from window seat during the 2 flights...

I got a Kochi-Da Nang return ticket for 17k, so have planned a trip to Vietnam now. 17k flight, 2.5k Visa, 5k hostel stay, 10-12k other expenses- entire trip I can conclude for under 50k per person.

Let me know what you think!