The necessity of co-development with the local villages

Cristo is a long-term Aurovilian who was involved in constructing Auromodèle and other communities in the 1970s and 1980s. A civil engineer by profession, he also worked in French Guiana in the early 1990s on the planning and development of new townships.

This experience taught him how important a greenbelt is to a city, and how difficult it is to prevent it from being encroached. The reality of the danger was brought home when, in the mid 1990s, a developer purchased a large piece of land in the Auroville greenbelt.

Cristo told a member of the Development Group that Auroville should challenge this in court on the basis of our Master Plan but he was astonished to be told that no such plan existed. (Actually an old one did exist but nobody knew about it at that time.) So it was decided to make an Auroville Master Plan, and for four years Cristo coordinated this work.

While making this Plan, Cristo realised that it made no sense to develop the city and protect the Greenbelt without involving ourselves in the development of the surrounding villages. The rationale for doing this was summarised in a draft document Cristo wrote for the Town Development Council (TDC) in 2017.

“If one looks at the Auroville Universal Master Plan – Perspective 2025, one sees on the maps the villages’ areas marked by yellow squares. These yellow squares confirm our ignorance of what constitutes the area meant for expansion of the villages’ housing and facilities such as schools, community halls, health centres, etc. It is likely that the same ignorance prevails in the villages, which for centuries have been developing in an unplanned manner.

“Today, due in part to population growth, the prospect for village expansion and development of common facilities is limited to poramboke lands that are either already encroached or unsuitable for supporting construction sites.

“Therefore, there are two choices in front of Auroville. One is ignoring the village's needs for expansion altogether and letting what will happen happen. Today, these villages are expanding their territory mainly along roads, to the point that one can expect the entire stretch of road between Kuilapalayam and Edayanchavady, and from Edayanchavady to Kottakarai, to be lined on both sides by shops and housing. This is already the case on the stretch from Aspiration to Periyamudaliyarchavady. The same is happening on the road from Bommayarpalayam in the direction of Le Soleil Hotel.

“The second choice consists in being proactive and harmonizing village infrastructure developments by integrating them into Auroville’s own Master Plan.”

Cristo emphasises that his motivation in helping develop the villages is not philanthropic. “It is in our own interest. If we don’t make the second choice now, we will lose much of the Greenbelt to uncontrolled development, particularly to the west, and life in Auroville will be hell. We also have to understand that if Auroville develops at a certain material level and the villages are left behind, it can create social tensions and impact our security.

“So, for me, the future development of Auroville depends upon every village having a development plan so that their development is not impaired by Auroville or, in turn, impairs Auroville’s.”

He envisages a land use plan for each of the seven neighbouring villages. “The plan would be like Auroville’s Master Plan in that it would identify the different areas for economic development, educational activities, etc.”

Cristo says we cannot expect the government to do this and the villages themselves do not have the capacity. Auroville would have to take the initiative. This was recognised five years ago when Cristo was asked to create a Regional Development Team under the Town Development Council to take up the work.

But how to go about making such plans? If Auroville adopted the typical top-down approach to planning which is the norm in India, this would only arouse resentment and non-cooperation in the villages. Instead, David Stein and Mr. Dattatri, two town planners with enormous experience of working in India who have also assisted in our town planning, advised that Auroville should cooperate with the politically-recognised entity in each village, the panchayat, to draw up village development plans.

The idea was that each panchayat would create a sub-committee to work with the Regional Development Team of the TDC. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be drawn up with each panchayat, specifying the activities to be carried out and the responsibilities of the different parties.

“We made it clear we are just the facilitators, the technicians, so don’t ask us for money from Auroville,” says Cristo.

So far, MoU’s have been signed with two local panchayats. In 2013, the Bommayarpalayam panchayat entered into an agreement, which led to the formation of a Planning & Development Committee under the panchayat. A year and half later, an MoU was signed with Irumbai panchayat.

“The idea was to begin with Bommaiyarpalayam and, if the work was successful, to replicate the approach elsewhere.” The collaboration started well. Work began on a compressed earth block training programme and the construction of individual toilets; on identifying Auroville land for a much-needed TNEB sub-station to serve the area; and on planning a beach beautification project in Pillaichavady.

However, the work was interrupted by the assassination of the panchayat President’s husband, Rajendran, who was the de facto President. After that, the Planning and Development Committee met less often and contact with Auroville slowly died out until the term of this panchayat expired at the end of 2016. No new elections have yet been held.

Meanwhile, word of Auroville’s collaboration with Bommaiyarpalayam had gone around, and Irumbai panchayat, comprising the villages of Edaiyanchavady, Irumbai and Kottakarai, requested a similar collaboration. An MoU was duly signed.

We were told not to work in Edaiyanchavady as it had a bad reputation,” says Cristo, “but this is where we had our biggest success. This village was supposed to be very hostile to us but thanks to the work that we did, that perception changed.”

The work included assisting in the completion of the Community Centre in Edaiyanchavadi; helping re-energize the Village Library in Irumbai; making Irumbai a model solar village with the Solar Street Lights project in collaboration with Auroville Consulting; setting up a plant and tree nursery in Edaiyanchavady; constructing individual toilets based upon an Auroville design; and initiating solid waste management awareness programme.

Two of the most important achievements were providing purified drinking water for the whole of Edaiyanchavady village (“because they told us that access to clean drinking water was their main problem”), and, with the help of Aurovilian expertise, setting up a profitable compressed earth block production unit in the village (the local administration has now decreed that every government building in this region would order from this unit).

But what about the larger issues of planning? A few weeks before the end of the term of the Irumbai panchayat, Cristo started discussing with them the possibility of constructing a bypass road around their village to relieve it of all the traffic traveling to and from Matrimandir. This would also benefit Auroville. Such a road would have to pass over both village and Auroville land.

“I showed them the map and said that without their help we cannot do it, and you cannot do it without our help. They agreed and we started studying the idea. This was precisely the real planning work I wanted to do with the villages.”

The work stopped only when the term of the Irumabai panchayat finished. For the last one and half years, Cristo and his team have been waiting for new elections to take place.

But isn’t this an argument not to work with the panchayats? After all, every time a panchayat changes a new MOU has to be signed with a new group, and the panchayat term is limited. All this can disrupt the work. Why not work with civil society in the villages instead, as is done by most of the Auroville outreach groups.

Cristo clarifies that planning must involve the local administration. “Also we believe that if during the term of one panchayat the projects we had done were successful, confidence would have been created and the next panchayat would want to continue the collaboration. As there is a political dimension to the panchayats, we also made it clear that we would work with any political party who wished to work with us.” At the same time, he emphasises that his team are in contact with many Auroville outreach groups, and are always willing to work with them in the villages.

But while the work with these two panchayats has been suspended pending new elections, Cristo continues to look toward the future and has drawn up a five year plan of action for regional activities. For the period 2018-2022 it includes hiring a team of regional planners to start planning for the region; revitalizing the Water for All programmes; and coming up with a detailed working plan for the creation of a service that will take care of solid waste management for Auroville and its satellite villages.

Solid waste management in the villages is a particular priority for Cristo. “We have to find ways that this is taken care of without polluting the village or the water table. It’s a huge challenge but, as an engineer, this is the kind of challenge that I love.”

However, there are more immediate challenges that he and his team are facing. In September, a new interface L’Avenir team was selected. Cristo had high expectations that they would support his work, but he was to be disappointed. In fact, they seem to have decided to disband or, at least, suspend, the activities of the Regional Planning and Development Team. “They say they are too busy with other things, like focussing upon creating a detailed development plan for the city, but I feel they do not understand, or are not interested, in what we have been doing in the villages. They do not understand that we are part of the solution, not the problem.”

He concludes, “I feel desperate because I know that if this work is not done the consequences will be catastrophic for Auroville.”

Cristo feels that L’Avenir’s stance is symptomatic of a narrow, Auroville-centric focus that is still prevalent in certain individuals and groups in Auroville. “This approach will never work.” He is also concerned that some influential individuals continue to look towards the Central Government in New Delhi rather than the Tamil Nadu government for guidance and assistance when it comes to development matters: “this is a grave mistake as you must involve the local state government”.

Cristo’s solution is to recreate the Town Development Council but in a new form. “There is a need for an Auroville municipal body that includes the heads of all the major departments – electrical, water, waste management etc., – to plan infrastructural development. In fact it was the true role of the original TDC, but it got hijacked.

“Regional development would be included because we are doing mainly infrastructure work. We should set up a regional planning office which is in contact with L’Avenir, the villages and competent planners.”

Cristo believes that if we are seen to be doing good work in the villages, it can be a replicable model for co-development for the rest of India. “Also, it will certainly boost Auroville’s image when it becomes known that Auroville strives to turn its satellite villages into model villages. And, of course, there are areas where it is very much in our own interest to collaborate: for example, in the fields of electrical power distribution, drinking water management, wastewater treatment and solid waste management.

“Today, if you go through a local village like Kuilapalayam you see cars parked in front of the houses and the kids are driving motorcycles, but the roads are in poor condition and the village is still a shabby place. It should not be like this. But unless Auroville is behind it, nothing will change.

“Ultimately, it all comes down to this. If we don’t work with our neighbours, human unity is just a slogan.”