Hyderabad: Because of the neatness, the amenities and the green environment, many people will initially mistake them for a park or leisure facility, but only when they walk in do they realize that it is a crematorium, also known as Vaikuntadhamams.
The effort of the State Government to help people cremate their loved ones in a decent atmosphere with all the necessary facilities has led to the establishment of Vaikuntadhamams in every town across the State.
Telangana is the only state in the country where almost all grams of panchayats have new Vaikuntadhamams. Of the 12,750 sanctions, 10,184 have already been built and the remainder will be completed by this month, a senior Panchayat Raj official told Telangana Today. At least one Vaikuntadhamams is a brainchild of Prime Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, in every gram panchayat in the state.
According to the Prime Minister’s instructions, officials are carrying out the project quickly. The whole project is charged at about 1,554 million. The Vaikuntadhamams are built with all the basic components, such as cremation platforms, waiting rooms, water facilities and toilets. Neatness and greenery are given the highest priority in these places, the official said.
In the absence of designated places, people used to cremate corpses in open spaces, far from the villages. Apart from that, there were sometimes controversies about the location for cremation. To address all these issues, the government has decided to build Vaikuntadhamams in all borders of the panchayats, the official said.
At locations where Mission Bhagiratha pipelines are close, water connections are provided through these lines, and at other locations, permission is given to dig boreholes, the official said. Depending on the size of the gram panchayat, a minimum acre of land is allocated for the construction of Vaikuntadhamam.
Among all the districts, Sangareddy has a peak of 647 Vaikuntadhamams in each of his 647 grams of panchayats. The Khammam district has built 557 Vaikuntadhamams and Nizamabad has 518 such facilities. The maintenance of the facilities at these places is handled by the respective gram panchayats. They were allowed to offer more facilities, should any individual or organization come forward to donate for it.
Source: Telangana Today