As part of their wall painting projects, BBMP painted a compound wall of a 1 acre plot in BTM Layout with social and cultural awareness messages last month. Residents welfare & Cultural Association of BTM and Director of Central Library approached BBMP to get the compound wall painted in November 2009. The work started in February. It took more than four painters about a month to paint the compound wall.
The plot located at 7th Main 9th cross BTM Layout belongs to Karnataka state Central Library. Nagesh, Director of the Central Library, based in Jayanagar says the proposal for a library in the earmarked land has been approved, "in the near future, residents will be having hi-tech library, to be built at the cost of Rs. 5 Crores".
Paintings potraying “Save water and trees” messages. Pic: Chetan Boray.
"People used to stick bills (posters) which looks odd, instead of that even here we can beautify our wall with paintings and recall our heritage", says A Vidya Shankar President of Kuvempu Nagar Residents welfare & Cultural Association.
Vidya Shankar initiated the idea and spoke to the BBMP Commissioner, Bharat Lal Meena, who is credited with the wall painting project in the city. Central Library agreed to the project and the BBMP machinery moved. BTM Ward Assistant Executive Engineer R Rangaswami coordinated the project.
The paintings include a mosque, Keerti Narayana Temple, Hoysala, St. Philomena’s Church of Mysore, Huttari dance which is native to Coorg and social awareness messages such as "Stop cutting trees", "Keep the city clean" "Stick no bills".
"It is important to know which painting should be painted in a particular place because, the selected compound is surrounded by residents from different culture," says Shankar who frequented the City Central Library to research on the history and culture of Karnataka for two months. Shankar says he recommended the painting of St. Philomena’s Church in front of a Christian family home and Huttari dance in front of a Kodava residence.
Traffic awareness programme
Bangalore City Traffic Police, South East Division, conducted an Traffic rules awareness programme for auto-rikshaw drivers.
The programme covered how accidents happen, how breaking rules affects traffic and how following rules makes it is safe for all commuters.
3-day training sessions was held for three successive batches. Around 500 auto drivers from Adugodi, HSR Layout, BTM, Electronic City and Agara participated, trained by K G Prashanth from the Institute of Road Traffic Education.
The valedictory session on 23 March, at AXA Software Convention Hall, BTM Ring Road was inaugurated by T Lokesh, Assistant Commissioner, Police, South East Division.
T Venkatesh, Madivala Traffic Inspector says, "we have plans to extend the training programme for cab drivers and others too". C Chandru Naik, an auto driver who attended the sessions says,"I have been a auto driver for 14 years and through this programme I came to know about many traffic rules which I was not aware of. I think every auto driver should attend this programme".
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Before painting, let the authority keep a vigil on the area where cleanliness is required for good health in the society. This is an example of “Rakshakaru becoming Bhakshakaru”. The old mico lay out police station which was in shanti niketan school building has made one of the play ground as their dump yard. Now the police station has been shifted to the new building in BTM 16th main but the old and dumped vehicles in this ground is as is and they didn’t clean up before vacating.When contacted, they said all these vehicle will go for auction and that has never happened till now. What my concern is in this situation of health hazards where diseases like Dengue,H1N1 are spreading at a very rapid rate, a police made dump yard like this would certainly welcome all diseases. Also this is very near by to shantiniketan school. We should keep in mind the health of the children also. Some educated/uneducated including the police men have used this filed for passing urine also. I request the responsible authority to clean up this area as soon as possible.
The police made dump yard is at
Near shanti niketan school,4th cross,SFHS layout,mico layout,BTM 2nd stage,Bangalore 560076.