[The Working Committee of the Resident Assembly is adressing a letter to the Community regards to a request that has been done by the Auroville Foundation Office. To understand the context of this letter please see the event: https://standforaurovilleunity.com/announcement/may-27th-2022/]
Dear Community,
We are writing in response to questions we have received about the Register of Residents (RoR) form which the office of the Secretary has circulated to be filled out by all residents.
In our view, although the form circulated by the Office of the Secretary is not in the format as prescribed in the Admission and Termination Regulations, 2020, we suggest people take their own decision to submit or not the form received from the office of the Secretary, as per their own judgment. Disclosure of information beyond what is stipulated in the form presently approved and gazetted (Form 1 of the Admission and Termination Regulations) is purely a voluntary choice and it is not linked to any inclusion or exclusion in the Registry of Residents.
Find in this link the Admission and Termination Regulations, 2020:From HRD, Ministry – Gazette of Auroville Foundation (Admission and termination of Persons in the register of residents) Regulations, 2020 dt.04.04.20
Find in this link, Form 1 of the Admission and Termination Regulations: Admission & Termination regulations-form
The following letter was sent recently to the Office of the Secretary by the Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly:
“We would like to state that through a very long process in the Residents’ Assembly and Governing Board and subsequent approval by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Law, an Admission and Termination policy was agreed upon and was put on 20th June 2020 in the Gazette of India. In the gazetted policy there was a Form I on page 11 that was approved. We notice the form which has been circulated by the Office of the Secretary is not in accordance with the agreed form. We would like to advise the Auroville Foundation Secretariat and members of the Residents’ Assembly that only approved forms as per the agreed policy should be used if required to update any Register of Residents. We are attaching the prescribed form along with the gazetted Admission and Termination policy.
As a small background on how the Register of Residents is updated, we have the following information to share.
- Both the RoR and the Office of the Secretary got established in 1991.
- The first names in RoR were of those residents of Auroville who were living here before the coming into effect of the Auroville Foundation Act 1988 (AVF Act) and were entered in the register maintained by the Administrator appointed under section 5 of the Auroville (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1980 (59 of 1980).
- RoR is a perpetual register which gets updated every time someone joins Auroville. As a process, Working Committee used to send the recommendation to the office of the Secretary which was then endorsed by the Office of the Secretary after following a due process and the person was entered in the register of residents. After the gazetting of the Admission and Termination Policy, the admission process is as follows
Admission into the Register of Residents.
- A person shall be qualified to have his or her name entered in the register if such person fulfills the following conditions, namely:
- a) if the person has completed the age of eighteen years;
- b) if such person has faith in and devotion and commitment to the Charter of Auroville and the aims and ideals as enunciated by the Mother and undertakes by way of signing the statement in Form-I appended to these regulations; and
- c) if such person has been accepted by the Admission Committee as a resident, after due process.
Authority to whom applications for admission may be made.
- An application for Admission in the register shall be made as per the Auroville Foundation Rules, 1997, as amended from time to time, to the Secretary enclosing the following documents, namely:
- a) Certificate of Nationality / Passport issued by the country where the applicant is domiciled at the time of making the application; Provided that in the case of Indians, the birth certificate or any such other proof shall suffice;
- b) signed statement in Form-I appended to these regulations; and
- c) Recommendation of the Admission Committee that the name of the applicant be entered in the register.
- The maintenance of the RoR is sole responsibility of the Secretary as per section 18 (2) of the AVF Act, The Secretary to the Governing Board shall maintain the register of residents in such manner as maybe prescribed and all the persons who are residents of Auroville and who are of the age of eighteen years and above are entitled to have their names entered in the register on the recommendation of the application made to the Secretary in such form as may be prescribed.
- As per the gazetted policy of admission and termination policy, the prescribed form which has been approved by the Residents Assembly, the Governing Board and the International Advisory Council and gazetted by the Ministry of Education is Form I of gazetted policy. Please find attached the gazette notification and the copy of the Form I.
- Therefore the form which has been circulated by the Office of the Secretary for updating the RoR is not correct as it is different from the gazetted prescribed form.
- As per records of the Working Committee, the Office of Secretary has on several occasions engaged services of Auroville residents for the maintenance of RoR for Aurovilians who passed away or chose to leave Auroville. The latest such maintenance occurred in the financial year 2019-20.
Yours Sincerely,
The Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly of the Auroville Foundation
Chali Grinnell, Elisa Goëta, Gilles Guigan, Hemant Lamba, Dr Juergen Axer, Sauro Mezzetti.”
WCom Statement on the Register of Residents RoR dt 29 May 2022