Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Saturday assured Aurovillians that no harm would be done to the forest cover of Auroville.
“Steps are being taken to make Auroville as per the dreams of the Mother (Mirra Alfassa, who founded the universal township). The old trees will be replaced by planting more saplings in some other areas,” Ms. Soundararajan, who is also a member of the governing board of the Auroville Foundation, said. She was responding to a question on the stand-off between Aurovillians and the Auroville Foundation while interacting with reporters after paying tributes to poet Subramania Bharathi on his birth anniversary here. “The dream of the Mother on the international township is yet to be achieved. But in achieving it, we will not damage the environment,” she added.
Ms. Soundararajan said she had received several communications from people extending support for her call to build a sky-high statue for Bharathi in Puducherry, similar to the one built for Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat. Earlier in the day, alongside Chief Minister N. Rangasamy, Speaker R. Selvam, Minister for Public Works K. Lakshminarayanan and legislators, she garlanded the statue of the poet near Bharathi park.