Virus fatalities mired in jurisdiction battle

Urban civic body accuses rural admin of not allowing burials and cremations of city folks who die in those parts, while the latter protests that the place is chosen by kin

Earlier, the complaint of the civic authorities was of relatives abandoning the dead, felled by COVID-19. Now, the relatives find themselves in a bind as civic authorities spar about jurisdictions when it comes to allowing cremations or burials.

The civic authorities in the city are resisting allowing bodies to be carted back into its limits from the rural fringes, petulantly accusing the rural administration of not allowing funerals of people who die within its limits. However, the rural authorities claimed they’ve made all arrangements for these funerals and cannot be blamed for the choices made by the relatives of the deceased.

When a 68-year-old resident of Sayyednagar in Hadapsar died on Monday morning at Vishwaraj Hospital in Loni Kalbhor, his family wanted to bury him near their home. However, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) insisted that the burial be done in the rural parts where the patient died. “My father needed ventilator support and it was not available in the city, so we were forced to admit him in Loni. But, we wanted his burial to happen closer home,” said the deceased beleaguered son.

Though the man died at 10.30 am, he could not be buried until 5 pm, with the family caught in the crossfire between the two civic administrations. “The family desired to bring the body back to Pune, but the civic authorities here were insisting they bury him near the hospital. They cited the absence of any order allowing them to provide ambulance to bring bodies from rural areas to the city, to back their denial. It took a lot of convincing for them to allow us to bring the body here,” explained Javed Shaikh, president of Ummat Organisation, which helped with the burial.

Sadly, this was not the first such instance. On August 7, when another Hadapsar resident passed away at Mahesh Smriti Hospital in Manjari at 6 pm, the local ward office refused to send an ambulance to cart the body back into the city limits. Even when local corporator Yogesh Sasane tried to intervene, he was fobbed off with the same protocol issues. Finally, a private ambulance had to be engaged to ferry the body for cremation.

Remarkably, pursuant to this incident, divisional commissioner Saurabh Rao ordered officials to send ambulances wherever necessary, disregarding jurisdiction issues, treating the entire district as a single unit. But clearly, it has made no difference. “We are cremating and burying so many bodies of people from rural areas, within our city limits. But the rural authorities are not reciprocating the gesture, refusing to respond to our requests. If we can take the load, they should too and not refuse to perform the last rites of our patients,” argued Kalpana Baliwant, assistant health chief at PMC.

But the rural administration countered that the question of denial doesn’t arise as they’ve been making all necessary arrangements for such rituals. “We’ve our systems in place, with trained manpower and personal protective equipment (PPE) kits et al. We’ve identified one location per taluka to take on the task. Any deceased person can be cremated anywhere and we’re yet to come across any complaints regarding this. We will look into any complaints if they come up. As for rural patients being cremated in cities, they’re usually taken there when they turn critical and it is their relatives who refuse to bring them back as the not every village is equipped for such cremations/burials. We make necessary arrangements if anyone wants to bring the body back,” insisted Ayush Prasad, CEO of Pune Zilla Parishad.