City walls to be whitewashed

 The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will whitewash public walls across the City after the results of the Lok Sabha elections are announced on May 16.The exercise will be taken up to erase the defaced paintings.

The Palike started painting the walls of underpasses and flyovers on August 15, 2009, to prevent people from spitting and urinating and pasting posters and bills on them. Over 100 artists were hired to paint the walls. The paintings mostly depicted forests of Karnataka, wildlife, waterfalls, heritage sites, religious institutions, scientific achievements of India, infrastructural growth and faces of eminent personalities.

The initiative, which cost the Corporation close to Rs 77 lakh, was introduced by former BBMP commissioner Bharat Lal Meena, amid opposition from many people. Artists who were employed were paid Rs 25 for each square foot they painted. However, the paintings did not serve their purpose for long. Over the years, while plastering on certain walls have been fallen off, some of them have been tampered with. A few of them have been turned into public urinals, waste dumping sites and spittoons.

Conceding that the paintings have made the City ugly, BBMP commissioner M Lakshminarayana told Deccan Herald: “After the counting of votes, we (along with the government), have decided that we do not want to repaint the walls of the City also because of financial constraints. We will instead whitewash them. Strict laws will also be brought to ensure that posters, advertisements are not stuck on the walls and nuisances are not committed.”