Land acquisition

The Auroville Foundation Act 1988 contains a special section on the Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly. It states that:

Auroville has purchased 13.72 new acres of fertile agricultural land near Irumbai Lake across from the Irumbai Temple. This vital addition to Auroville’s land area was funded by private donations to Acres for Auroville.

The A4A team reports on the results of supporters’ solidarity.

In the November issue of Auroville Today, a group of Aurovilian architects and town planners discussed the Galaxy plan and concluded that it still had much to offer.

It is this ‘decisive action direct from the Supreme’ and it alone that makes possible what used to be impossible. It is by tuning to this new and higher consciousness which has descended that the Aurovilians were able to be Mother’s instruments – and will continue to be her willing servitors.

In the article “Acquiring and protecting the lands – the views of the Land Board” which appeared in the October 2016 issue of Auroville Today, reference was made to a statement from the Land Board to the Auroville International Centres that Auroville can develop and build the city for the next 10 years before there would be any standstill caused by non-ownership of a plot of land in the city area.

When the members of the Land Board took office in January 2014 they met with a dire scenario. Funds to purchase lands were in short supply, the sale of outlying lands was blocked, land encroachment was rampant, land grabs and falsifications of land documents by outsiders were discovered, and legal assistance was insufficiently available.

August 15th – Sri Aurobindo’s birthday – was the occasion for the inauguration of new phases in Auroville’s three land fundraising campaigns: Phase 3 of the Acres for Auroville land campaign; the second year of the Green Acres campaign, and the second phase of the Art for Land action.

Pashi Kapur came to live in Auroville with his family in early 1974. Since then, he has contributed a great deal but his Auroville journey has not always been smooth.

On February 7th, the ‘Landing Auroville Celebration’ held at the Unity Pavillion was an encouraging success. Organised by the joint land fundraising teams of Acres for Auroville, GreenAcres and LFAU, the event’s central message was the sacredness of the land, and the need for an intense collective effort to acquire land in Auroville’s Master Plan area now.

Little is known about those early days before Auroville’s inauguration, when land purchase and the first Auroville developments were started by the Sri Aurobindo Society.

Kalya, a Tamil Aurovilian and executive of Progress Landscape and also working for the Town Development Council, has offered 3.5 acres of land situated in the Greenbelt to Auroville.

The Chairman of the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation, Dr. Karan Singh, in two open letters to the Aurovilians, communicated the Board's concern about the slow progress of land purchase.

The goal of Acres for Auroville is to secure, consolidate, and protect the land in the Matrimandir and International Zone areas. The campaign is a joint effort of Auroville International France with Lands for Auroville Unified (LFAU) in coordination with the LCC (Land Coordination Committee).

After months of speculation and incertitude, the Auroville Foundation Bill was passed in both Houses of Parliament in early September. There is no doubt of the historic importance of this bill in terms of Auroville’s growth.