'Color My City' enhances the beauty of Hubballi: Service provided by a team of youth at their own expense for 10 years

By ETV Bharat Karnataka Team

Published : January 3, 2026 at 1:50 PM IST

For the past 10 years, a group of young people have quietly continued to enhance the beauty of the city, spending their own money without any financial assistance.

Report - H.B. Gadda

Hubballi: The commercial city of Hubballi is growing day by day. There is an increase in the number of people coming to the city for business and other work. Along with this, the filth, uncleanliness, and worn-out walls have tarnished the beauty of the city. Seeing this, a group of like-minded youth has made continuous efforts to give a new look to the city, and their efforts have borne fruit.

Ten years ago, a youth group led by Kiran Uppara started a campaign called "Color My City". The decades-long campaign aimed at cleanliness and beautification. As a result, today thousands of colorful pictures have been painted on the walls of the twin cities of Hubballi and Dharwad, reviving the beauty of the city.

Beauty and awareness: The city's government buildings, schools, college compounds, roadside walls, overpass walls, railway underpasses, and municipal buildings are covered with his colors. One can see pictures that create awareness about current issues including the environment, freedom fighters, Kittur Rani Chennamma, Sangolli Rayanna, past Presidents, and Prime Ministers. The beautiful, meaningful large pictures on the clean walls cannot fail to attract everyone's attention.

Kiran Uppara is the founder of the 'Color My City' campaign, and his team is led by an artist named Ullas. Ullas' team is a group of young people interested in painting and is painting the city. They are not collecting money from the government or any other organization for this. Instead, Kiran Uppara's friends are collecting money and beautifying the city with colorful paintings, he said.

Decades of hard work: Responding to ETV Bharat, Kiran Uppara said, "When I was studying in London, the cleanliness and beauty of the city caught my attention. After I came back from London, I formed a team of artists and started the Color My City campaign with the intention of doing something in Hubballi. We have been painting for about 10 years. They used to put up obscene posters and movie posters on the walls of the city. But our team is constantly cleaning the walls. Now, since the flyover work is going on in the twin cities, we are working on beautifying schools in rural areas. We are not getting money from anyone for this work. If donors give us paint, we will take it. Otherwise, we have joined hands with like-minded people and spent our money to continue beautifying the city."

Artist Ujjwal said, "Color My City has given many opportunities to young artists like us. In addition to enhancing the beauty of the city, we have also worked to raise environmental and social awareness about our freedom fighters."

Artist's Appeal: Artists work hard to paint beautiful pictures. Someone puts up a poster on it, spoiling its beauty and purpose. This is very painful. Therefore, Kiran Uppara's request is that the Municipal Corporation should provide a separate space for poster-posters. She says that the public should stop fuming over the pictures and spoiling them.

This content is based on reporting originally published by ETV Bharat. Read the full article here.