Observations on the minutes of the 67th GB meeting

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:

1. GB Agenda not shared. It is regrettable that once again the agenda for a meeting of the Governing Board was not shared beforehand with the Residents’ Assembly, which, in the Auroville Foundation Act, has been given the right to be consulted and give advice to the Board on all matters relating to Auroville that now have been decided by the Board.

2. IAC Advice not sought. We also observed that on none of the issues mentioned in these minutes has the Board sought the advice of the Auroville International Advisory Council, which is yet another sign of disrespect for the Auroville Foundation Act.

3. Advice of RA not sought. It appears that the Board only considers issues brought up by the Secretary, who shares with the Board her own views and who tries to create the impression with the Board that there are only a few Aurovilians who object to her actions, which is untrue.

According to Sections 17 and 19 of the AVF Act, the Governing Board has the obligation to consult with and take the advice of the Residents’ Assembly on all matters related to residents and activities of Auroville, and therefore it is expected that the Board will invite agenda points from the Residents’ Assembly through its selected Working Committee, as was previously the norm.

4. Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly and residents ignored. It is regrettable that the Board has not responded to nor acknowledged any letters or reports sent by us, as the Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly chosen as per Section 20 of the Auroville Foundation Act. Neither has there been any response to letters and reports sent to the Board by other residents expressing deep concern about matters such as the land claim by PKS and the many instances of environmental destruction and hurried and haphazard construction of roads.

SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS:

5. Regarding the RTI. We regret that the minutes of this meeting of the Governing Board have only been published by the Auroville Foundation Office on its website in February 2025 and have not been shared with the Auroville residents. We remind the Board and the Secretary of a decision of the Information Commissioner, the authority responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, made in December 2023, that the Auroville Foundation’s Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) is obliged to ensure that the Governing Board’s minutes are published for the public through the internet, in an easily accessible electronic format and in a timely manner. By not following the instruction from the Information Commissioner, the Board and its Secretary are violating the RTI Act.

6. Secretary’s Report. It is noted that the report is not included in the Minutes and has not been shared with the Residents’ Assembly or its Working Committee.

7. Status of court cases, pending issues and AVF regulations. Regarding regulations created and approved by the Board, two sets of Regulations have been stayed by the Madras High Court for being of the parent Act. In spite of this, groups have been appointed by the Board under these regulations and these groups are going ahead with functions under the stayed regulations.

8. Zonal development plan for all four zones of Auroville. This plan has not been submitted to the Residents’ Assembly or the International Advisory Council for input. It is requested that this is shared with all authorities of the Auroville Foundation.

The Master Plan Perspective 2025 has not gone through the required updating followed by approval from the Residents’ Assembly, thus the Zonal Development Plans presented to the Governing Board cannot be implemented.

9. Various observations on Auroville maintenance (financial service). Auroville Maintenance is a unit that manages approximately 4,000 accounts of Aurovilians and 2,000 of various business units. The Board concluded that the Financial Service is not licensed and therefore not allowed to carry out these operations.

We would like to point out to the Governing Board that the activities of the Financial Service do not fall under the category of banking as envisaged by section 5 (b) of the Banking Regulations Act, 1949. The activities of the Financial Service are limited to the scope of the Auroville Foundation Act and are not extending further. As the Financial Service consolidates funds of individuals and units for the purpose of furthering the objectives of Auroville and for the benefit of Aurovilians, the Financial Service cannot be considered to be a bank.

The Board is evidently unaware that a large part of the monthly income of Auroville comes from interest generated on the deposits of the accounts managed by the Maintenance Fund. Individual Aurovilians do not receive any interest. Transferring the transactions to any outside bank implies the closure of Auroville Maintenance and of the internal accounting systems of Auroville, leading to a substantial loss to Auroville and to much discomfort of the Aurovilians. Moreover it will affect the basic principle of a collective economy for Auroville.

Lastly, the ZOHO accounting system is not suitable for Auroville Maintenance/Financial Service.

10. Setting up of an Integral Medicine Institution and Integration of Medical Facilities in Auroville Foundation. The Board’s decision to set up this institute synthesising the Indian system of Medicine with allopathic systems in collaboration with Institutes of National Importance (INl) such as ITRA and JIPMER ignores that the Auroville population is too small to be of any meaningful importance for these institutions.

The input of Auroville’s own medical institutions and experts may be sought before any MoU’s with any INl is entered into, and the results of these inputs shared with the Residents’ Assembly and IAC. These changes to Auroville’s healthcare system could greatly impact the health of all residents, and would thus require a comprehensive sharing of information and consultation with those who will be affected.

11. Important decisions taken by the current Working Committee, Funds and Assets Management Committee and Town Development Council. It is to be noted that these 3 bodies have not been selected or approved by the Residents’ Assembly and they have not issued any reports to the community that they are claiming to be serving and representing. Moreover, these undisclosed “important” decisions underlines the need for transparency and comprehensive communication from these groups with those affected.

12. Organogram of the O/o. Secretary, AVF. This organogram by the Secretary, “to channelize and streamline the entire procedures in Auroville for planning, documentation and integration of data, accounting, procurement, visas, farms and administration to function in a more organised manner” has not been shared with the community for its comments. Once again, we see the tendency of the Board and its Secretary to try and run Auroville as a government department, ignoring the authority of the International Advisory Council and the Residents’ Assembly.

13. Creation of three posts of Deputy Secretary to facilitate the appointment of officers to handle Administration, Accounts, and Security matters. Concerns over the inordinate number of added personnel within the AVFO have been shared with the Governing Board though no response was received. In parallel, there has been a significant number of layoffs, budget cuts to services and maintenance cuts within Auroville’s internal organisation that have been done since the start of this current administration’s term, causing great financial hardship to many residents.

14. Approval of the budget for the year 2024-2025 (first quarter). It is noted that this and all other budget requests since 2021 have not been presented to the Residents’ Assembly and its groups for input or approval, as was the practice previously.

15. Approval of changes proposed in the Auroville Foundation Act 1988 and Rules 1997. The motivation for this decision (“in the recent court cases filed by the residents, the Foundation faced a pattern of misinterpretations of certain sections of the Act 1988 and the Rules 1997”) seems to us incorrect and misleading. It is the Board which consistently has refused to accept both the judgement of the single justice Quddhose in August 2022 and the equally exemplary judgements of the Chief Justice of the Chennai High Court of September 4th, 2023 and March 15, 2024, which both followed the letter and the spirit of the Auroville Foundation Act. If it is the Board’s intention to remove both the International Advisory Council and the Residents’ Assembly from the Act, Auroville will be reduced to being a government department and the purpose for which Auroville was created will be destroyed.

It is imperative that the Board seeks the views of the members of the International Advisory Council and of the Residents’ Assembly on the recommendations of the Additional Solicitor General of India before taking any decision on proposing any amendments to the Act to the Government of India.

16. Approval of model MOUs with Govt. institutions and private firms. We are very concerned about the Secretary’s signing of MoU’s without seeking the views of the International Advisory Council and of the Residents’ Assembly on any of these.

17. Policy for the Auroville social media. We request the Board to submit the draft of the Auroville Media Policy to the International Advisory Council and the Residents’ Assembly for their comments. We are concerned that such a policy might lead to arbitrary censorship and to attempts at censuring or even punishing the authors and editors with disciplinary action, up to expulsion from Auroville, in cases where the content of the media displeases the Governing Board or Secretary.

The Board and Foundation Office’s current approach to communication with the Residents’ Assembly and IAC, their censoring of internal communication platforms, and provable disinformation to news outlets cultivate a deep distrust for the reasons for such a policy to be made.

Note that this Standing Order for Residence Criteria was created under Regulations that have been stayed by the Madras High Court and therefore is bordering on contempt of the court.

18. Approval for appointment of M/s. MSK Prasanna & Co, Chartered Accountants for Accounting & Allied Services. We are concerned about the motivation of the Board in appointing a new Chartered Accountant and discontinuing the work done by Auroville’s in-house accounting units, because they “are managed by Aurovilians all of whom are not professionally qualified, and who have not been in a position to submit the accounts in time to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and who are also not competent to file all required statutory returns”. We question the correctness of this statement and we would like to add that the accounting service of the Auroville Foundation itself has not been up to the required standard and has (also) been instrumental in causing delay in the submission of reports. We further regret that the Board so unceremoniously has discontinued the work of the Chartered Accountants from Pondicherry who have contributed so much to the development of Auroville over the past several decades.

19. Approval for the Establishment of Auroville Physical Education Board. We noted the Board’s decision to create the Auroville Physical Education Board and for the approval of the approximate budget of Rs. two crore. These matters fall under the functions of the Residents’ Assembly to manage the internal affairs of Auroville. Additionally, we have noted an alarming tendency towards a rigid approach, giving inappropriate emphasis on certification, which is against Mother’s philosophy for education as stated in the Dream.

20. Approval for consolidation of Green Belt areas of Auroville. It is noted that the minutes here do not relate to consolidation of the Green Belt area but rather about beach land protection. We welcome the Board’s decision to protect the beach guesthouse communities of Gokulam, Samarpan and Rainbow by fencing the Gokulam land and building a compound wall consolidating the three Auroville plots. We request the Board to instruct the Secretary to obtain a study on the possibility to regain the now submerged lands of Repos Beach, which have been lost to the sea. It appears that building a groyne will lead to a substantial beach accretion, and may ultimately lead to Repos Beach being revived.

We also request the Board to instruct the Secretary to protect this Auroville asset. Studies for this project have been made by Auroville experts and NIOT (National Institute of Ocean Technology) and submitted to the Board and Secretary.

21. Status of infrastructure works awarded to Central Public Works Department CPWD. We observe that in general the quality of the work and the processes followed by the CPWD are sub-standard and do not reflect the suggestion of the Board in Item 67.02 regarding ‘elegant architectural and structural design’ with an eye towards aesthetics.

22. Approval of electrical Master Plan at Auroville. Once again we bring to the Board’s attention the limited nature of the Master Plan 2025, the need for its updating, and the Board once again bypassing both the Residents’ Assembly and the International Advisory Council.

23. Escalation of cost for the construction of new Town Hall Building. We noted the Board’s decision approving the revised Preliminary Estimate of Rs. 777,032,000 for the building of a new Town Hall. We question whether the construction of a large administrative building is a priority in the present context of Auroville’s development. We observe that it might be advisable to make an assessment of the foreseen built up area for administrative purposes to make an informed decision about whether or not it is congruent with a city that has a projected population not exceeding 50,000 inhabitants. We agree, however, that if the construction proceeds, the new Town Hall will be one of the most prominent public buildings in Auroville, especially considering its location in the City Centre close to Matrimandir. Therefore, we request the Board to ensure that its design is made by an outstanding Indian or international architect with adequate consultations with the residents and architects in Auroville.

24. Approval of Budget for various projects in Auroville 2024-2025. These projects and the budget to fund them have not been presented to nor approved by the Residents’ Assembly or any of its representative working groups, as was the usual practice prior to 2021.

25. Liaison office in Delhi. We noted the Board’s decision to establish a Liaison Office of the Auroville Foundation in New Delhi to act as an Auroville Information Centre, and to receive dignitaries and officials from various Ministries and Embassies. We trust that knowledgeable and experienced residents will be invited to participate in creating the material that will be disseminated from this office as well as creating exhibitions and participating in any other events related to Auroville.

26. Land consolidation. In view of recent allegations of lands having been exchanged far below their value and without following proper processes, we question the credibility and integrity of the presentation that is mentioned. We are extremely concerned about the Board’s apparently blank permission to the Secretary to sell off or exchange lands outside the city area with lands within the city area in order to consolidate land for the development of the city, without first having a full investigation carried out in regards to these allegations and the realities on the ground.

We would like to request the Board to investigate if the Government of Tamil Nadu cannot apply the Tamil Nadu Land Consolidation Act 2023 to acquire the necessary lands within the city area so that these lands can be obtained through transparent mechanisms.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In order to move further along the path towards an ‘actual human unity’, a primary goal of Auroville as stated in its Charter, there must be an open interaction and harmonious collaboration between the three authorities of the Auroville Foundation. The Board’s authoritarian decisions and the Secretary’s heavy-handed actions do not contribute to Auroville’s well-being or to the realisation of the aims for which Auroville was created and the Foundation Act was promulgated.

We once again call upon the Governing Board to engage in sincere and meaningful dialogue with the working groups selected by the Residents’ Assembly, with the wider community and with the International Advisory Council.