Punjab: Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar makes eco-friendly stove for cremations

Ropar: Amid the soaring death toll and grim pandemic situation leading to a shortage of wood for the cremation of bodies in the country, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar along with Cheema Boilers Limited, Ropar, has developed an eco-friendly traditional cremation technology. It not only creates very little smoke, but also reduces half of the consumption of wood for the cremation of a body, developers said.
The researchers said the fuel-intensive nature of the funeral rites has increased the need for the wood alarmingly.
Answering the need for environment-friendly disposal of the dead, the technology developed by IIT Ropar researchers is based on the wick stove, in which the wick when lighted glows yellow and this is converted into smokeless blue flame after installing the combustion air system over these wicks. They said it’s a first of its kind technology with high temperature burning at 1,044 degrees Celsius and with 100% sterilisation.
“The cart has wheels and can be transported anywhere easily. With the stainless steel trays on both sides for easy ash removable, the cart is equipped with combustion air for primary and secondary hot air system. The disposal is completed within 12 hours, including cooling, as against 48 hours. It requires less cooling time and works on a temperature above 1,000 degrees Celsius that ensures complete sterilisation. It has stainless steel insulation on both sides of the cart to prevent heat loss and less wood consumption,” IIT Ropar’s dean ICSR & II professor Harpreet Singh said.
He said, “The wood costs Rs 2,500 for disposing of one body, so poor families sometimes try to get by with much less and end up having to dispose of partially burnt bodies, or even whole corpses, in rivers. A formal Hindu cremation — in which a body in a three-foot-high open-air pyre — can consume more than 400 kg of wood to reduce the body to ashes, this can be reduced with the help of this eco-friendly cremation cart.”
Harjinder Singh Cheema, MD, Cheema Boilers, said, “We are providing the simplest way of cremation, which can be performed within half of the wood required.”