Chennai: The members of the Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street, Mandaveli and people living in the surrounding came together to beautify the RK Mutt road, by involving in a wall-painting initiative at Sringeri Mutt Road.
Right from young children to senior citizens, people participated enthusiastically in the drive in which some portion of the wall opposite to the Chennai High school was painted colourfully with eco-friendly messages. It is the second-wall painting drive in the locality as during March this year, TAKSRA along with Karam Korpom, an NGO and the traffic police department came together for the project.
Speaking about this K L Bala from TAKSRA says, “Before March this year, Sringeri Mutt Road was plagued with a serious of civic issues. Vehicles were parked all through the stretch and the footpath was damaged forcing pedestrians to walk on the road and they also had to bear the brunt of foul smell while passing through the street as the place stunk due to open defecation. We then came together and soon moved the vehicles parked here with the help of the Traffic Police and decided to restore the wall here with the wall-painting drive to restore the decrepit compound wall here which was ruined with posters stuck all over it.”
Continuing from where they left off, some more portion of the wall was painted by the volunteers this time around, giving a new look to the street. “We do this activity to make people realise the need to keep their surroundings neat and clean and we would like to be an example to other people and resident associations. By working together for a common cause we want to set a precedence and will be happy if activity like this happens across the city,” says Sairam, a volunteer, who participated in the initiative.
Asked about their further plan, Bala says, “Still some portion of the wall is left and we wanted to complete painting the whole wall. The challenge however is the wall is broken in between and it must be resurrected at the first place before continuing with the project. We are getting good support from the Corporation as well and we wanted the pedestrian platform to be extended to make it more pedestrian-friendly. The project also has to be replicated across the neighbourhood.”