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The option to charge visitors for entry into Auroville is not one that could ever be
consistent with either the raison d’être or the aims of Auroville.
Therefore, as for every area of its physical development, Auroville must rely to a
very large extent on the flow of energies directed to it by those individuals and
organisations most responsive and most supportive of its evolutionary tasks.
We would ask the members of the Governing Board, along with the members of the
International Advisory Council, to help us seek the most appropriate sources of
funding.
2- Shri Kireet Joshi, our dear Chairman, has had in the past two years several
occasions to address this issue of Auroville’s interface with the public, and has done
so in very inspiring terms, with a clear focus on the educational opportunity this
interface provides.
We would request the members of the Governing Board to consider the
appropriateness of integrating this area of concern within the larger scheme of
CIRRHU so that it may receive part-funding not merely for the creation of further
physical facilities but also for the creation of informational and educational
materials and processes.
3- The growing influx of visitors to Auroville has vivid and telling repercussions on
the life and welfare of the neighbouring villages.
In the absence of a conscious and positive coordination effort on Auroville’s part,
this process is already resulting in an increase of disharmony, materially as well as
psychologically, both in Auroville and in these villages.
We would like the members and Chairman of the Governing Board to endorse the
necessity for a concerted effort to define the most appropriate terms of a
harmonious co-development with those villages, in collaboration with the villagers
themselves and with all relevant and concerned authorities, and to assist Auroville
in whatever possible ways in creating this desirable environment for the welfare of
all.
To begin with, we would recommend the formation of a balanced team
commissioned to present a feasibility study on the main critical aspects of this co-
development: by-passes roads, definition of commercial and recreational sites and
formulation of land uses in the concerned areas.
Finally we would greatly welcome any advice and suggestion the Governing Board
members may wish to share with us.
With our thanks, at the service of Truth.”
***
Note: While the Chairman and all the other members of the Governing Board were
appointed for a maximum period of 4 years, Roger A had somehow become the
only permanent member.
And now, with the insurance and stated guarantee of the Chairman, Kireet Joshi’s
unconditional support – and that meant not only psychological but political and
legal support -, Roger A’s position was considerably reinforced.