Land exchanges questioned

On November 11th, an article in the Times of India mentioned that the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (All India Anna Dravidian Progressive Federation - AIADMK), currently the main opposition party in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, which has great influence in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry, demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's primary domestic crime-investigating agency, into the alleged irregularities in land exchanges at Auroville. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, responding to the representation of AIADMK’s former law minister C. Ve. Shanmugan, said the issue had been forwarded to the “department concerned” for action. An estimate of the cumulative financial loss to Auroville of the recent land exchanges is approximately 250 crore rupees (almost 30 million US dollars).

The recent exchanges of Auroville lands have been severely questioned by the RA Working Committee appointed by the Residents’ Assembly (RA-WCom) as well as by members of the Auroville International Advisory Council (IAC). The latter had recently written to the Governing Board (GB) conveying disappointment in the lack of transparency as regards land exchanges, resulting in a breach of trust between the GB and the Auroville residents, and urging the GB to halt any further land exchanges. The land exchanges are now also being questioned by Aurovilians who were previously supportive of the Auroville Foundation. In recent posts on Auronet, Auroville’s internal internet forum, the Working Committee approved by the Governing Board (GB-WCom) stated that they had not been consulted for a proposed new land exchange and that they were against the exchange. According to their calculations, this exchange alone represented a financial loss to Auroville of approximately 5 crores, as the seller would receive high value Auroville land located on the Tindivanam Highway in exchange for 3 small pieces of “not important” greenbelt land. They also pointed out that the GB had only given permission for outlying lands to be exchanged for Master Plan lands in the city area. They also re-shared a report to the GB that had been previously deleted. According to the GB-WCom’s calculations, the financial loss to Auroville due to the recent exchanges of AuroOrchard, Djaima and Felicity would be around 100 crore rupees. The GB-WCom stated “[these] Land exchanges … were executed in total contradiction of the Governing Board decision in its 61st meeting … In the history of Auroville, we have never suffered such a level of mismanagement. We came to know in a conversation with Mrs. M. [the AVFO Land Officer] that she continues to meet the landowners for future land exchanges. And we also discovered that a land exchange has been approved again by the Governing Board and AVF, without any consultation with the GB-WCom.”