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Report meeting - ATDC & MM team & Michael B- Lake shoreline + Hill

25-07-2024

Venue: ATDC (second floor), ACUR Building

Date and Time: 25-07-2024, 15:00 - 15:45

Present: ATDC team: Antim, Jaya, Joel, Prasad, Sindhuja

Matrimandir team: Antoine, Divya, Himal, John, Judith, Selvam, Sundar

Lake team: Arjun, Michael B, Rohan

Follow up on action-points of previous meeting 09/07/2024

1. ATDC has sent an email to CPWD to request the marking of the northern shoreline. One

more follow up will be done soon and ATDC will update MM.

2. ATDC has met Meenakshi Madam (AVF land officer), about the status of the acquisition

of the recently fenced piece of land on the western side. The negotiations are underway.

3. For CIRHU alignment, Pino can be invited to a separate meeting.

4. Selvam MM will show Sathish (ATDC Planning) the trees to be cleared in the dug out

portions of the Lake, after this a formal request from ATDC will be sent to DS IFS Office

to activate the tree clearing as per protocol.

5. For the MM Service Building, the ground markings were already done by CPWD, in the

portions not within the current soil storage area. Sathish will show the markings with

CPWD to Selvam of MM immediately after this meeting.

1/ Design and engineering of the dam of the Lake near Town Hall and on the Western

edge

1. The difference in height between the northern shoreline and the Town Hall floor buildings

will reach a maximum of 1,3 meter on a 30-meter slope, the slope is 3%, so there is no

issue of soil washing away even if the Lake overflows. The engineering design will be

very simple.

2. As the Lake Promenade also needs to be designed along the shoreline, how this

interacts with the landscape design of the Administrative Area buildings etc has to be

studied and a proposal madre by an architect, together with the LGA engineering team.

Matrimandir and Michael Bonke will work together to find an architect to design the strip

and LGA will provide the structural/ engineering details in consultation with Harald Kraft

wherever required.

3. Since the Lake will maintain a uniform shore height along its circumference, on the west

there will be a substantial difference in topography between the Lake border and the

surrounding land. Also the level difference between the Crown on the west and the Lake

is up to 12 meters. It is agreed that the appointed architect and engineering team will

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have to fix the final finished levels to which the plinth levels of the buildings in the

Administrative Area will be adjusted. (i.e. the plinth of the AA buildings will gradually be

higher and higher from NGL so that to keep the same ratio of level difference between

the finished shoreline/ promenade and the plinth of all the AA buildings).

4. The ATDC will prepare a cross section of the entire city center upto the Crown on the

west, showing that the plinth of the buildings in the belts further away from the Lake (i.e.

the Habitat Belt, the Vocational Training Belt, and finally the Crown buildings) will be

lower and lower until it corresponds to the finished level of the Crown road. The water

run-off from the shoreline to the Crown shall be managed in between the buildings of

each of these Belts so that percolation is ensured in the Parks and Gardens between

each of these Belts, already part of the Zonal Development Plans.

5. The proposal of dumping of the earth on the Western shoreline of the Lake to increase

the height of land there and to stabilize the soil should not be done now, but rather as a

part of the building of the entire Lake shoreline and the Promenade.

2/ Crown water collection and pumping into the Lake shorelines

1. There has now been designed two collection ponds that will collect the water from the

stretch of the Crown which will go from Solar Kitchen to Savitri Bhavan. One of these

ponds is on an existing Kuttai Poramboke (natural collection area) and the other will be

an Auroville made lined pond, where the water will be finally filtered before being

pumped into the Lake on the southern side.

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3/ Storing the excavated soil and the Hill

1. The Hill has been an intrinsic part of the Auroville project as part of the water

management system for several decades. The concept of the hill has been there since

Auroville’s inception, for which the Mother had given specific guidelines.

2. A location for this Hill has been contemplated between the MM team, M. Bonke and the

ATDC since 2012 in the north-eastern part of the Green Belt. Due to lack of enough

lands owned by Auroville, a precise location had not been defined.

3. Now with the combined land purchase efforts of AVF and Varuna enough lands are

available for the location to be finalized and a land parcel to be released as a starting

point of the dumping of soil.

4. The tentative hill location, size and shape shall be as finalized in the map attached below

subject to adjustments based on detailed study and final technical drawings. The land

carrying the survey number MA 300/2 near Fertile Field is finalized as the first of the

parcels where the excavated soil will be dumped to start with. The MM Lake team will

start shifting the soil taking care of the required modalities.

5. The access to this land, via parcels MA 302/1, MA 301/2 & MA 301/5 belonging to

Auroville, shall be undertaken by the MM Lake team. Further, the lands carrying the

survey numbers MA 312/1A, MA 313/ C2, MA 312/B and MA 312/2 shall also be used

for the purpose of the Hill as and when more earth is available for shifting.

6. Fencing of the entire hill area shall be undertaken by the MM Lake team when the entire

land required for the hill is secured.

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