Paint ’em with artworks: Corpn’s plan for those defacing city walls

“We are engaging artists to create paintings on the city walls where the practice of pasting posters is rampant. The artists will paint the walls, most of them on the major roads, with the images of the city’s popular buildings and landmarks,” a senior Chennai Corporation official said. 

The official said the artworks would be created on the walls owned by private parties if they are located on major roads and subjected to frequent misuse by pasting posters. 

“The painting works have already commenced in some places. The initiative will prevent the menace,” he said. 

The civic body started the city-wide drive a few days ago. As per the data, as many as 69,227 posters were removed from the city walls by Friday evening. Around 35,704 posters were removed from the south region of the civic body alone. 

The civic body has already warned those who continue to paste posters of stringent action. 

Meanwhile, the civic body recently invited corporate firms and non-government organisations to create artworks and paintings across the city. 

The initiative is to create more artworks similar to the ones created in the Kannagi Nagar resettlement area. Interested firms and NGOs have been asked to fill in an online form by mentioning their area of interest. 

Apart from creating artworks, firms and NGOs can tie up with the Corporation in creating and maintaining green spaces. 

A few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city, the Chennai Corporation had taken up the ‘Kannagi Nagar art district’ project and created murals on the walls of the slum clearance board buildings.