Sringeri Mutt Road was plagued with a serious of civic issues. With unauthorised parking of vehicles all through the stretch it posed a threat to safety of people. Also there was no space for pedestrians and the place stunk due to open defecation.
To grapple these issues and make the place people-friendly, Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street Residents Association (TAKSRA) joined hands with other NGOs to give a makeover to the street.
Many people came together and along with the help of traffic police facilitated in clearing the vehicles parked in the stretch and also painted the walls and planted saplings along the stretch. Speaking about this, K L Bala from TAKSRA says “We had lot of vehicles parked here and the compound wall here was also getting misused as it provided room for some men to drink and do other activities. Since Sringeri Mutt road is used by a lot of people for commute, we wanted to make the locality clean and tidy once again and initiated steps.”
Bala also runs an NGO called Eko Connectors and along with TAKSRA, he joined hands with Karam Korpom – Stop Abusing Public Places, an NGO based in Mylapore to kickstart the initiative. Along with the support of the traffic police, all the vehicles parked were removed and the volunteers painted the compound wall that runs along the street with colourful messages.
“SAPP is an organisation that is one-and-half-years old and it mostly has school-going students as members who do wall arts around the locality. This was their 25th event,” says Bala.
“Along with the SAPP nearly 20 members from TAKSRA and some people from RK Nagar, nearby too participated in the initiative. We roped in HDFC bank as our sponsor to support this initiative. There was a shortfall of funds and like-minded people from TAKSRA also donated money to support the cause,” he adds.
With nearly 40 school-children all the volunteers formed a team and painted the wall last week. “There are nearly 40 wall panels in Sringeri Mutt Road and we have completed the wall-painting for 20 panels. With the support of the school students we were able to complete the work in a short time. The remaining will be done soon,” says Bala. TAKSRA also invited MLA of Mylapore, Natraj and he planted saplings.
“Our objective was to transform the neighbourhood and through this initiative we wanted to tell residents that everything can be transformed, provided people come out and get into action. Communities should come together to drive initiatives. Mylapore MLA Natraj was also happy to see people working together and he wants this to be replicated across Mylapore by many communities,” says Bala
Asked about their future plan, he says “No-parking boards have been installed in the road and traffic police has ensured that they will be on constant vigil to make sure no vehicle is parked in the stretch. We are also working with them to make it a little more pedestrians friendly considering the school zone here. We have also created ‘street champions’ in every street and from now on, they will decide upon the requirement of the street and will work in tandem with us. We would like to continue this activity in other areas,” he signs off.