Beach erosion

On 20 March, the Ministry of Education, responding to two Right to Information requests dated 25 and 26 February, sent the applicant a copy of the Minutes of the 68th Meeting of the Governing Board (GB) of the Auroville Foundation held on 5 December 2024, which have since been widely distributed in Auroville.

After months of erosion see [AVToday # 422, September 2024], Sri Ma beach sands are returning. From now until March, the sand will accumulate because the current is coming from north to south.

The gradual erosion of the Tamil Nadu coast is a well-known phenomenon. Erosion happens when the shoreline is worn away by the movement of sand and waves.

On July 15th, residents of the Sri Ma community received an “Emergency Evacuation Notice” signed by the Deputy Secretary of the AVFO, mentioning that “the sea erosion has reached a critical situation today and the buildings may collapse at any moment”.

On 3rd November, Dr Ravichandran, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt of India, visited Auroville along with Dr Ramanamurthy, Director of National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), to discuss the restoration of the eroded coast.

In the past decade, relentless sea erosion has badly affected some of Auroville's beach communities. Auroville Today reported on the problems a number of times, most recently in the article "New hope for our beaches?"

Twenty years ago, generations of Aurovilians enjoyed the beaches and the sea. Now almost all the beaches and many Auroville houses have disappeared.

Looking at some of the old issues of Auroville Today, it’s fascinating to see how some of the articles could have been written just last week.

Aurofilio is a member of PondyCAN, a citizen’s action network located in Pondicherry. He has been very much involved with promoting the Pondicherry Beach Restoration scheme, which is now underway to restore the town’s beach.

Beach erosion has very badly affected some of our beach communities for the past decade. In Auroville Today we have reported a number of times on the problem as well as on proposals to solve or mitigate it, but so far, apart from research, very little has been done on the ground.