Range of complaints regarding Auroville referred to agencies, says MoS

Union Government refers complaints on land exchanges, encroachment, cybercrime, and money laundering in Auroville to appropriate agencies.

The Union Government has referred a range of complaints, including dubious land exchanges, encroachment, cybercrime and money laundering in Auroville, to the appropriate bodies/agencies, Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar has said in Parliament.

Replying to a set of questions pertaining to the universal township, which is under the oversight of the Ministry of Education, raised by D. Ravi Kumar in the Lok Sabha, Mr. Majumdar said representations and complaints have been received from several quarters, including community residents, on various matters related to activities in Auroville.

These inter-alia include alleged offences such as land encroachment, drug abuse and peddling, cybercrimes including data theft and data leak through servers based outside India, violation of immigration laws, circulation of black money, money laundering, raising of donations without registration under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and many more economic offences, besides irregularities in land exchanges.

Complaints dealing with alleged offences under the Information Technology Act (for cybercrimes) and Indian Penal Code (IPC) have been referred to competent agencies for investigation, the Minister told Parliament.

Representations and complaints dealing with land exchanges have been forwarded to Auroville Foundation to examine the merit of the allegations and place them before the Governing Board (GB), it being the competent authority, to recommend suitable course of action, the Minister said.

On whether the Government has any plans to appoint the local member of parliament as an ex-officio member of the executive council of the Auroville Foundation, the Minister responded that all appointments to these authorities are made by the Central Government in line with the provisions of the Act.

As per Section 10(3) of the Auroville Foundation Act, 1988, the Foundation shall consist of three authorities---the Governing Board, the Resident’s Assembly and the Auroville International Advisory Council.