GB clears proposal for inter-faith cemeteries

THANE: In a rapidly growing city like Thane, land is at a premium even for the dead. Now the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has decided to construct inter-faith cemeteries to overcome the shortage of land to bury city's dead. A proposal to permit construction of more community cemeteries was passed in the general body meeting last week. The TMC is urgently scouting for at least seven plots to construct new crematoriums.
Thane currently has a total of 51 public and private small and big cemeteries, but with growing population there is an immediate need to identify more land for performing the last rites. The proposal was made underlying the need for cremating people from different communities on a single land that could be demarcated for use of different communities.
"The city is growing rapidly and apart from modernising the existing crematoriums, there is a need to start inter-faith cemeteries. For example, there could be single demarcated burial ground for Shia, Sunnis and Bohra communities. This is the way forward going into the future," reads the proposal. The BMC already has this concept.
According to TMC data, of the total 91,269 sq m of area reserved for constructing public utilities, such as toilets, community centres and crematoriums for different faith, much has been encroached upon. A total of 1,970 hutments stand on this land