Students of Kala Bhavana have started painting pictures on two boundary walls of Visva-Bharati, which are dirty or cluttered with posters, ahead of the Basanta Utsav (festival of colour).

The festival will be held on March 21.

Officials have said the boundary walls are on the eastern and western sides.

“The walls were very dirty and filled with posters and different slogans. We have decided to paint murals to beautify the campus before Basanta Utsav which lakhs of visitors attend. Students of Kala Bhavana have already started their work,” said Anirban Sircar, the public relation officer of Visva-Bharati.

The sources said the Visva-Bharati authorities had first cleaned up the wall and vice-chancellor sought suggestions from Kala Bhavana teachers on how to beautify the walls.

About 40 under-graduate students were engaged to paint the walls with black and white colours.

Varsity sources said over Rs 20,000 would be spent on the beautification of the two walls.

“Our students are painting murals. After Basanta Utsav, we will paint pictures in more portions of the boundary walls. If the walls are filled with artworks, political parties or traders will hesitate to write graffiti or plaster posters,” a senior Kala Bhavana teacher said.

The subjects dealt with in the paintings are tourists in totos, open air classes at the varsity, trees, monkeys and food stalls.

Subhankar Haldar, a fourth-year student of Kala Bhavana, said: “Both junior and senior students have been involved in the project. We are enjoying the painting.”

The tradition of painting mural is not new in Visva-Bharati. A two-storey house on Kala Bhavana campus has been fully painted with black and white by renowned painter and former teacher K.G. Subramanyan.

“Our students had earlier painted several murals on the varsity walls at their own cost. This is the first time that the varsity has taken an initiative to paint pictures on the boundary walls of the campus. It will look good and tourists will also enjoy it,” a Kala Bhavana teacher said.

Posters in a portion of a wall. Indrajit Roy