Kolkata municipal corporation struggles with ten-hour window for Covid-19 cremation

KOLKATA: A 10-hour window to cremate those dying of Covid is proving impossible for Kolkata municipal corporation with only one of the twin furnaces at Dhapa functioning properly. Though the civic body is attempting to operate the other furnace to keep pace with the bodies arriving at the crematorium, it has been unable to bridge a three-day backlog that had happened last month when the furnaces were out of order from June 28 to June 30. Sources said the crematorium was able to handle around 10-12 bodies a night.
According to KMC officials, not only are the 25-year-old furnaces meant to cremate unclaimed bodies creaking under the load of dead bodies, the situation has been further compounded by KMC’s inability to cremate Covid bodies during the day when KMC conservancy workers arrive to dump solid municipal waste at Dhapa.

Home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who is also the nodal officer for Covid management in Kolkata, called for streamlining of the cremation process at a meeting with KMC officials on Tuesday. He also asked the civic body to increase the number of hearses available to transport dead bodies to the crematorium.
The backlog has led to a pile-up of dead bodies in hospital morgues and is also prolonging the pain of families in bereavement. A 45-year-old teacher had to wait for 72 hours to finally learn that her father had cremated. The Ballygunge resident managed to collect the urn containing her father’s ashes from the Pragati Maidan police station three days after her father died in a nursing home in central Kolkata. The octogenarian had tested Covid-19 positive at a local clinic.
“The wait seemed never-ending. I spent sleepless nights. All we wanted from KMC authorities was a confirmation that the body had been released from the nursing home and taken over by the KMC for cremation. They finally did so after three days,” recounted the teacher.
She isn’t the only one who faced this ordeal. A Dhakuria bank executive lived in anxiety for three days after his septuagenarian mother died of Covid. The body had languished in the mortuary of a private hospital for three days.
“For a family in bereavement, this is inhuman. I was shocked beyond words when I was told I could not see my mother. But it was more shocking to watch an insensitive administration that dismissed my pleas for a quick cremation. I was bluntly told it would take time as there was a queue of dead bodies,” Banerjee said.
A resident of Aranbina Sarani in north Kolkata, too, complained that calls to the KMC Covid nodal officer for cremation of her mother who died of Covid-19 at a private hospital in Alipore on Thursday went unanswered.
KMC is reluctant to put any more pressure on the ageing furnaces, fearing they may again suffer a breakdown and increase the backlog. According to Manzar Iqbal, one of the members of the KMC board of administrators in charge of the electrical department, said a new furnace was being built at Dhapa to take the extra load. “We hope to set up a new furnace by the end of this year. Once it is built, we will be able to reduce the present delay in cremation of the Covid-19 patients,” Iqbal said.
Calls to Atin Ghosh, member of the KMC board of administrators who handles the civic body’s health department, and nodal officer Manirul Islam Mollah went unanswered.