A parliamentary panel chief has urged the Union higher education ministry to halt eviction notices issued to residents of Auroville’s Annapurna Farms, warning that the proposed action conflicts with recommendations made in the panel’s report on an IIT Madras sustainability campus.
Mukul Wasnik, chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, wrote to higher education secretary Deepti Gaur Mukerjee expressing concern over notices served by the Auroville Foundation. The notices reportedly give residents of Annapurna Farms 10 days to vacate the premises.
Wasnik has asked the ministry to direct the Auroville Foundation to withdraw the notices or keep them in abeyance. He has also urged the ministry to prevent any irreversible action, including land transfers, demolitions or evictions, until the matter is formally reviewed.
The intervention follows the committee’s 371st report, presented to Parliament in December 2025. The report examined a proposed collaboration between the Auroville Foundation and IIT Madras to establish a sustainability campus. While the committee welcomed the proposed collaboration, it cautioned that the campus should not be developed at the expense of Annapurna Farms.
According to the report as cited by Wasnik, the committee recommended that “Annapurna Farms should not be disturbed and that alternative sites nearby should be found to situate the sustainability campus”. The recommendation places the dispute within a wider question of how land inside Auroville should be allocated between institutional development and existing agricultural activity.
Wasnik’s letter stated that Annapurna Farms’ organic agricultural practices align with Auroville’s founding vision and that food self-reliance is an integral part of that vision. The panel chief therefore asked the ministry to ensure that an alternative location is identified for the proposed IIT Madras campus, in line with the committee’s recommendation.
He also requested a detailed report from the Auroville Foundation explaining the legal authority and background under which the eviction notices were issued. The letter called for transparency and consultation with community stakeholders before any future land decisions are taken within Auroville.
The reported intervention does not itself cancel the notices or establish whether the Foundation has withdrawn them. The immediate administrative steps sought by Wasnik are a ministry review of the notices, clarification of the Foundation’s legal basis for issuing them and identification of an alternative site for the proposed sustainability campus.
