It’s a ‘grave’ situation for the dead in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Two months after Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) commissioner Somesh Kumar announced the ‘immediate modernisation’ of crematoriums and development of graveyards, the reality presents a sorry picture.
While some graves are buried under piles of garbage, others serve as stumps for kids playing cricket in the neighbouring localities. If anything, since the promise to improve the graveyards has been made, the condition just got worse.The graves, which are a family’s way of bidding goodbye to their loved ones have been reduced to piles of cement structures with all sorts of garbage on it.
The GHMC commissioner had announced that two graveyards from each circle in the city would be identified and developed. He announced, “Within a 100 days’ time frame, the development and enhancement of the graveyards will be taken up in a phased manner. The identification and the list of those graveyards will be completed in few days.” He added that while beautification of the identified places would be done, they would also provide them with modern facilities and basic necessities.
The 100-day project was scheduled to begin with the Panjagutta graveyard. However, the only thing that has been done in the almost 90 of the 100 slated days is passing tenders. “An estimate of Rs 9.50 crore has been given out and tenders are being called in. We are awaiting approval from the higher authorities on the matter as we can sanction projects only up to Rs 10 lakh,” said M S S Somaraju, GHMC circle-10 deputy commissioner.
The higher authorities, on the other hand, remain clueless about the programme which Somesh Kumar was very keen on completing. “I think the work is going on. But I am not aware of the specifics,” said Dhan Singh, GHMC engineer-in-chief.
While the authorities are busy passing the buck onto each other, the graveyards and crematoriums are becoming a biohazard. “It was a different story when the crematoriums were outside the city. Now they are right in the heart of it which makes burning bodies a biohazard. The residential areas are usually affected, which calls for immediate modernization of the crematoriums,” said Jayaprakash Nambaru, founder of I Go Green Foundation.
“There are places in the city where crematoriums share a compound wall with a school. This can have hazardous effects on the children studying,” Nambaru said adding, “If the authorities cannot modernize it, they should work on shifting all these places outside the city.”
The problem is just getting worse with the average number of deaths increasing year by year. With the way the authorities are handling the matter, it seems like even the dead will not be resting in peace.