Saving Quiet

Auroville owns a number of properties along the beach close by the villages of Bommayarpalayam, Chinnamudaliyachavady and Periyamudaliyarchavady in an almost uninterrupted length of 1 kilometres. Most of these lands were acquired in the early 1960s. Some of the communities had beaches up to 70 metres wide. Sundays were the days for beach life – so much so, that guards were hired to protect the bathers and their possessions.

Now the beaches have all but gone. Over the past 20 years, there has been beach erosion leading to massive loss of land and buildings. The Auroville beach communities have been heavily affected: Wild Waves no longer exist; Repos and Gokulam are almost completely washed away, and. in Samarpan buildings have already disappeared into the sea. Now the same fate is threatening the land and buildings of Quiet Healing Center.

In financial terms, the losses are staggering. According to the Auroville Housing Service, Auroville has already lost immoveable assets to a value of more than Rs 2.5 crores, and this does not count the cost of the land lost.

The rapid erosion of these shores is caused mainly by the building of the Ariyankuppam harbour and its breakwaters in the neighbouring Union Territory of Puducherry as well as various other hard structures, like seawalls and groynes, built by the Puducherry Government. These constructions, designed to protect the Puducherry seashore, have negatively affected the littoral drift of the sand offshore, leading to excess of sand in some places and depletion of sand in others, including the Auroville beaches.

Steps taken by the Tamil Nadu Government

After representations from the affected people, the Tamil Nadu Government allocated Rs 32.3 crore to build protective structures in the form of sea walls and groynes. In January, 2013, the Public Works Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, started to build a groyne field and a sea wall at Chinnamudaliarchavadi village. It was intended to continue along the beach between the Auroville communities of Quiet and Samarpan, but the construction of the sea wall was stopped after some 400 metres following an interim injunction of the National Green Tribunal South Zone as no environmental clearance, a mandatory requirement under the Environmental Protection Act, 1986, had been obtained by the Tamil Nadu Government. The interim order directed the coastal states of India to come up with an integrated coastal zone protection plan.

Following the stoppage of construction, the exposed lands were left without protection. Quiet’s sandy beach front, which had been 70 metres wide, disappeared after two years. Quiet’s reception facility, once a comfortable 150 metres away from the sea, is close to the sea’s edge, while the distance to Quiet’s guest facilities has been reduced to 35 metres. In neighbouring Chinnamudaliar-chavadi village, about 80 dwellings had to be vacated after severe damage or imminent danger of collapse.

At present, the erosion is continuing rapidly and preventive measures need to be undertaken on a war footing. However, it was only on November 24th, 2018 that the Government of India approved the Coastal Zone Management Plan for Tamil Nadu while the Comprehensive Shoreline Management Plan for the entire coast of Tamil Nadu is still awaited.

Action by Auroville

Concerned that the erosion would affect more Auroville properties, the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation in its meeting of February this year instructed the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation to take up the matter with the National Green Tribunal, South Zone, as well as request the Ministry of Human Resource Development – Auroville’s nodal ministry – to take up the matter at an appropriate level. The Board also advised that a Supreme Court lawyer should be consulted.

The Secretary filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal, South Zone, to be granted interim relief for the stretch of land where the Quiet community is situated, stating it requires immediate protection. The petition stressed that the relief sought would be temporary: in other words, it would be removed by the Foundation in case it interfered with the final measures to be taken by the Government of Tamil Nadu; that it would be executed partially on land owned by the Foundation, which is now under water; and that it would be built at the expense of the Auroville Foundation. The petition also mentioned that the Foundation will seek the necessary permission from the Tamil Nadu State Environment Impact Assessment Authority, but in the meantime the Foundation should be allowed to protect its properties as this permission may take some time to materialise.

At the same time, Supreme Court lawyers were approached for their views. They advised that Auroville should not be seen as only wishing to protect its own properties, but also show concern for the plight of the neighbouring fishermen communities, many of which have lost their houses and boat berthing facilities. As the National Green Tribunal South Zone is not functioning for the time being, the lawyers advised that both the fishermen and the Auroville Foundation should file a petition before the Chennai High Court. The fishermen should ask the High Court to instruct the Tamil Nadu Government to protect their properties, arguing that they have already lost their habitats and livelihood and the government has not done anything since 2013. They should request the Tamil Nadu Government to immediately undertake measures to prevent further sea erosion by completing the construction of the sea wall and groynes according to recommendations made in studies conducted by the Department of Ocean Studies, IIT Madras, and other experts in the field.

The third action was to ask the Chennai-based National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, to do a feasibility and environmental impact assessment study on how best to protect Quiet.

In July, NIOT submitted its study and recommended the construction of three short (40 metres long) T-groynes. “The concept is to have groynes in the shape of a T running out from the shoreline, with the top of the T lying seaward. The sand will then be trapped within the T shaped structure and start to hold the beach for a small stretch,” stated the report. Short T-groyne systems also allow sand to bypass downstream to minimize the negative impact of the groynes elsewhere.

The Pondicherry solution

Within four years of the construction of its harbour and its breakwaters in 1986, the city of Pondicherry lost kilometres of its own pristine beach. Attempts to restore its beach by pumping sand from south of the harbour breakwater to the promenade have failed.

A new plan is now in operation. In August this year, a 900 tonne artificial reef was immersed near Pondicherry’s Chief Secretariat. This reef is part of a triple action plan, designed by NIOT. There is already some measure of success. Sand accretion is happening and a small beach has returned to Pondicherry.

Another submerged structure is planned to be installed offshore, parallel to the coast, to reduce wave activity onto the shore.

The last element of the plan is the dredging of around 0.3 million cubic metres of sand from the south of the harbour to the area of the former promenade beach. Dredging will be done by the Dredging Corporation of India with the Puducherry Public Works Department supervising the project.

The effect on the Auroville beaches

What the effects of these measures will be for the beaches of Tamil Nadu, including those of Auroville, is unknown. Jan Imhoff, one of Auroville’s engineers, fears that the newly submerged reef will be “nothing but a big groyne” which will have the same disastrous effects as the groynes already in place. “The second parallel reef may allow sand to freely move towards the north and prevent erosion along the coastline. But this has yet to be seen.” He adds that for Tamil Nadu, the effects of the Pondicherry project will depend mainly on whether or not the Pondicherry Government will sustain the dredging and sand bypassing. “Doing sand bypassing was also done in the past, but it was soon discontinued as dredging is a very costly affair. If once again they do not sustain it, we will have more erosion.”

Jan hopes that the action of the fishermen will help bring the requested relief. “They have been badly affected and they are ready to take action against the government and the politicians. For the Coastal Zone Protection Act was written to protect the fishermen, and it is not doing that.”

The National Green Tribunal Principal Bench decision.

Unexpectedly, the Principal Bench of the National Green Tribunal New Delhi took up the petition of the Auroville Foundation. On September 5, 2018, it passed an order stating, “In view of the fact that the preparation of a Coastal Zone Management Plan is under process and is to be finalised by the Central Government, which has to be prepared by the State Government, there is no just reason for us to pass any order in this case. However, we deem it proper to direct the Tamil Nadu Coastal Zone Management Authority to look into this matter and take appropriate steps, in accordance to law.”

The Auroville Foundation has meanwhile approached the Tamil Nadu Coastal Zone Authority to obtain the required permission to construct the groynes at Quiet. Jan is hopeful that NIOT’s solution will be accepted. “There is no danger that these three groynes would negatively affect the flow of sand, neither north nor southwards. If approved, Quiet’s beaches would to some extent be restored, which would also benefit the fishermen communities which can again berth their boats and dry their nets there.”

A 14-minute documentary titled “India’s Disappearing Beaches – A Wake Up Call” by wildlife and conservation filmmaker Shekar Dattatri focusing on Puducherry’s disappearing beaches can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTn6Qpgjok