Hyderabad civic body pushes 10 new crematoria against odds

Hyderabad: Ten ultra-modern graveyards, each costing Rs1 crore, are to be set up in the city within three months. Experience shows that locals have not taken kindly to having electric crematoria in their midst, at Amberpet and Panjagutta.

A technical snag has stopped operations at the SR Nagar crematorium.
The electric crematorium at Bansilalpet is the only one that is functioning one.
Besides this, a modern graveyard is functioning in the city without public resistance at Road No. 45, Jubilee Hills.

A three-acre site has been identified beyond Mount Opera for one of the 10 new graveyards.As residents were opposed to setting up crematoria, the GHMC had approached the Ranga Reddy district administration for land.

A site beyond the city limits on the National Highway to Vijayawada, was then identified. Locals oppose crematoria within the city due to stench emanating from burning bodies.

Secondly, the delay in handing over unclaimed bodies by the police and mortuaries at government hospitals means many bodies in a decomposed condition are brought to the crematoria.

“Unclaimed bodies are not released immediately because of medico-legal issues. Hospitals and police do not try to speed up the procedure,” said a senior official from the health and sanitation department.

It is also that equipment at electric crematoria develop snags because of the highly decomposed state of the bodies. This issue was addressed by the previous GHMC council and the then Mayor Majid Hussain had sanctioned Rs10 lakh per circle to carry out the rites of all unclaimed bodies.

Rukmini Reddy, a resident of Amberpet, said, “The bodies that are brought to the crematorium are often decomposed and disease-ridden, and emit a foul smell.”

At Panjagutta, resident N. Chandrashekar Rao who protested against the crematorium, blamed the GHMC for poor maintenance, “It used to take three to four hours to burn a body, which ought to have been completed in 40 minutes. The slow process only adds to the problem with the smoke staying in the air for a long time.”

Asked about these problems, an official from the GHMC’s health and sanitation wing said the operations and maintenance of all four electric crematoria would be privatised.

Private parties would be given three-year contracts to operate crematoria from 9 am to 6 pm. No decomposed body will be allowed to be cremated there, he said. The contractor would be required to maintain the equipment, including oiling and lubricating them, cleaning the system, removing debris and checking all electrical points.

The process of receiving the body, entering details in the performance register and collecting user charges would be monitored by the GHMC, he said.

Asked about the 10 new graveyards, he said, “They would be built on the lines of the Mahaprasthanam at Jubliee Hills Road No. 45 in private public partnership (PPP) mode. They will be pollution-free. Each of them would have electric crematoria with technology-enabled operations. Land had been identified, and a few of them would be located within the city.” “These graveyards will not invite any objection from nearby residents,” he said.