 Auroville
is located around eight km from
Pondicherry and is a place that
you should not miss while on
a visit to pondy. Auroville
is a township of universal essence.
It has been conceived to accommodate
people across 35 nations to
live as a community. It came
into existence in 1968. The
idea of this utopian state was
brought to the Mother several
decades back, following which
she gave her blessings to this
noble task. The Government of
India and later UNESCO welcomed
the suggestion and encouraged
it.
This novel town in the making
is designed to accommodate 50,000
people across the world. The
town underlines the strong purpose
of recognizing human unity in
diversity. This township in
the making was officially inaugurated
on 28th Feb 1968 wherein about
5000 people of different origin
assembled here along with a
little bit of soil from their
homeland. This soil was mixed
in a lotus shaped urn placed
in the amphitheatre. In this
ceremony, the Mother put forward
the 4-point charter for the
residents.
Auroville is referred to as
the city of Dawn. The city has
been planned out neatly. It
has been divided into several
zones. At the very centre, there
is the peace area consisting
of the Matri Mandir, the gardens,
the amphitheatre with the urn
and a lake. Then comes the industrial
zone which is directed at the
creation of green industries
meant to make the town self
sufficient .This area includes
the city’s administration
and other training centers.
Residential Zone comes next
which is the largest area among
all zones. More than half of
the area will be green area
whereas the rest would be the
built surface. Apart from this
there is an international zone,
a cultural zone and a Green
Belt zone. The International
zone is meant to host national
and cultural pavilions. In the
Cultural zone there are facilities
for art and sports and other
cultural activities. The city
has been conceived to have a
green belt surrounding it meant
for organic farming, forest
and wildlife areas etc have
been planned. Such novel ideas
like transformation of waste
land into a dynamic ecosystem
have been successfully implemented.
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