A new Land Board

It takes time to select members for important working groups. The selection of new members for the Working Committee, the Auroville Council (AVC), the Funds and Assets Management Committee (FAMC) and the Town Development Council (TDC) last year took three days [see AVToday # 340 November 2017]. The time needed to invite nominations and scrutinize the list of candidates took more than three months.

This process was considered too time consuming to be repeated for selecting the new executives of the Matrimandir and, more recently, the members of the Land Board. For the Matrimandir, the Working Committee and the Auroville Council sat together for two days to decide on the best team, after the nominated candidates had been screened by a Feedback Review Committee. This process was not repeated. Instead, in an ad hoc decision-making process formulated by the Working Committee, FAMC, Auroville Council and L’avenir, 76% of the 108 residents that chose to participate, agreed to a revised selection process for the Land Board, and not follow the formally approved decision making policy of the Residents’ Assembly.

It was decided that each of the four main working groups would nominate one of their members as representative in a Land Board Selection Committee (LBSC); each working group would also nominate four community members and an outgoing Land Board member.

The Residents’ Assembly Service (RAS) then picked the names of four community members and one outgoing Land Board member out of the hat; they, together with the nominated members of the Working Committee, FAMC, TDC and AVC constituted the LBSC. One member of the RAS acted as ‘silent observer’ in the meetings of the LBSC.

The community, in the meantime, had been asked to propose candidates and, afterwards, give feedback on the names proposed. A Temporary Feedback Review Committee (TFRC) went through the feedback received, filtered all submitted nominations and compiled the final list of nominees. From this list the LBSC selected the five new members of the Land Board.

The LBSC reported that the task had been arduous. They had met with the Secretary, Auroville Foundation; had studied the responses from the four working groups on a questionnaire; and had met with present and former Land Board members, with members of the fundraising team and with members of the Auroville Security team.

The LBSC had formulated general criteria for selection of candidates such as time commitment, the ability to be a team player and there being no conflict of interests. It also had agreed on land-specific criteria, such as experience in land matters and understanding of legal issues. They met with all the nominees. Then, after two rounds of seeking consensus amongst themselves, they came up with the five names required for the Land Board. When the names were announced, one selected member declined to participate and was replaced by another person.

The LBSC also made some recommendations. One is that there should be a minimum of two standby nominees chosen by the LBSC in case members step down from the Land Board mid-term. Another is that there should be a land purchase and protection policy, which should guide the functioning of the group. This policy does not exist. Lastly, it proposed to change the way in which land purchase decisions are made and involve more working groups so that the community, through these groups, can maintain an oversight on the work of the Land Board.