Residents’ Assembly decides

In a well-attended meeting of the Residents' Assembly (RA) held on January 2nd, a proposed decision to be made by the RA (RAD) was formulated:

To pause all clearing, infrastructure laying and permanent construction work on the Right of Ways of Crown, Radials and Outer Ring in order to enable the community to define a way forward for Auroville's development, following collective processes, the 'Master Plan: Perspective 2025' framework, and other relevant regulations.

This formulation was approved by 397 persons while 24 residents were against it. On January 4th, the Universal Township Group launched a petition to invalidate both the RAD and the Residents’ Assembly Service (RAS) team who were described as 'dysfunctional' and 'driven by personal opinion'. 115 people signed the petition, though later some withdrew. The next day, a counter petition to support the work of RAS was launched. Within a day it received over three hundred signatories. The RAS started the decision making process on January 9th. It lasted till January 25th. On January 26th, the RAS announced that the RA had decided to accept the proposal. 899 valid votes had been submitted. 803 Aurovilians supported the proposal, 96 Aurovilians did not.