Trusts

In response to a Right to Information request of 7 December, 2024 the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education has sent the applicant on 3 January the minutes of the 67th Governing Board meeting held in Auroville on 31 May, 2024.

Claude and Abha have been living in Auroville since 1974 and 1978 respectively. For the last 45 years, Abha has been running the handicraft unit Shradhanjali while Claude has become a scholar who has authored several books and articles on Tibet, China, India and on Indo-French relations.

The Auroville Foundation has 37 management trusts which together hold 600 units and activities. Palani, the executive of the accounting unit Omega, gives his views.

Auroville is seeing an increase in bureaucracy. The Funds and Assets Management Committee proposes to enlarge its 12-page Code of Conduct for trusts and units of the Auroville Foundation to a 40-page document: the Town Development Council has come up with an empanelment process for contractors in Auroville and has initiated a process for how to deal with people who build without building permissions; the Entry Board is facing official “Auroville Foundation (Admission and termination of Persons in the register of residents) Regulations 2020; and there is an increasing ‘imposition’ of regulations from outside Auroville.

Auroville’s Funds and Assets Management Committee (FAMC) held two general meetings in November in an effort to come closer to the community.