Hyderabad: Giving beautiful facelift to ugly public spaces in city

Hyderabad: GHMC has taken various initiatives and grounded many a programme to keep the city clean under the Swachh Bharat mission. Denizens in their varying capacities are also chipping in to keep the city tidy. One among them is a 26-year-old Tejaswi Podapati, a software engineer and founder of the Bhoomi Foundation, which has taken initiative towards cleaning and beautifying the city. Every month the techie is spending 70% of her income on this mission.

The Bhoomi Foundation gets into action in the city every weekend. They have painted over 120 walls near bus stops in the city, at places such as Balanagar, Hazefeet, SR Nagar, Begumpet, Punjagutta, Yousufguda, Serilingampally and Banjara Hills.

Speaking to THI, Tejaswi Podapati said the NGO was formed in order to create awareness among the citizen to keep the public places clean. Especially, bus stops are very badly maintained. Besides, public walls are mostly covered with posters, which is spoiling the image of the city. "So we took the initiative to remove the poster and paint the walls," she said.

"As and when posters and flyers are removed from walls, ugly patches are left on the wall. So we paint the walls with various cleanliness messages that include 'Clean Hyderabad Starts From You.' This initiative was first started by Bangalore-based NGO "The Ugly Indian" and I read about it in a magazine and got an idea to take such initiative," Podapati informed.

The NGO was first set up in her home town Ongole in Prakasam district in 2016. After she moved to Hyderabad for a job with Tech Mahindra as a software engineer, she thought of carrying out the NGO activities in the city as well, and thus commenced it in 2018. The initiative started 10 volunteers.

At present, armed a team of 3000+ volunteers, including IT employees, college and school students, and middle-aged people every weekend, the NGO selects a spot in the city. They descend on the spot and go about cleaning the public space.

 I spend 70% of my income on this initiative every month as I don't need any donation for this mission. A few months back I asked GHMC to give material support and am still waiting for their response

- Tejaswi Podapati, NGO Bhoomi founder