Friday, 18 November 2022 | PNS | HARIDWAR
The Haridwar district authorities are planning to install the State’s first gas powered crematorium at the burning Ghat in Khadkhadi. This will reduce the dependence on wood for cremation and the smoke to a great extent. The Haridwar district magistrate Vinay Shankar Pandey has sought a report from officials concerned in this regard during a meeting he chaired on the subject.
The DM held a meeting with representatives of the Sewa Samiti which manages cremations at Khadkhadi regarding the operation of the electric crematorium already installed at the site. The Sewa Samiti chairman Rajkumar Gupta said that generally people do not prefer cremating the bodies of their kinfolks in the electric crematorium. The electric crematorium is being used mainly for unclaimed bodies. Executive engineer of the Public Works Department, Surendra Singh said that Rs 142.74 lakh would be spent on the renovation of the electric crematorium while a gas-based crematorium can be constructed for Rs 123.47 lakh.
The Haridwar municipal commissioner Dayanand Saraswati said that payment of electricity bills is a major problem in the operation of the electric crematorium.He further said that the electric crematorium has to be started 24 hours before the cremation of a body and consumes considerable electricity. Officials present in the meeting opined that a gas-based crematorium would be better than other procedures from the aspects of pollution and fuel consumption.
It is pertinent to mention here that Khadkhadi is the most used cremation Ghat along the Ganga in Haridwar where bodies from various parts of the State are brought for cremation. Considerable quantities of wood are used for the funeral pyres. The Municipal Corporation of Haridwar is also working on a plan to provide logs made from cow dung for cremation.
