Corporation of City of Panaji clears bill, dead finally rest

Corporation of City of Panaji clears bill, dead finally rest

Preetu Nair, TNN

PANAJI: For the past two months, unclaimed bodies recovered within Panaji police station jurisdiction had been denied cremation at the St Inez Hindu crematorium.

The reason: CCP had failed to clear pending dues. The Corporation of the City of Panaji had not reimbursed the St Inez Hindu crematorium the money it had spent on procuring wood for the last rites.

“On receipt of a requisition slip we supply wood to the CCP to cremate the dead they bring. However, CCP has failed to clear a bill of Rs 10,000 pending for the last two months,” said Hindu crematorium committee president Avdhut Angle.

However, things changed on Friday evening once The Times of India approached CCP commissioner Elvis Gomes to find out what was happening. He cracked the whip and the funds came tumbling out. “The matter has been sorted out and I have given instructions to clear the dues,” said Gomes.

By Friday evening, with CCP clearing the pending bill, five of the nine bodies awaiting cremation were given their final rites.

A single body requires more than 50 kgs of wood for cremation, which works out to be about Rs 1,000 per body. Expressing satisfaction over the development, Angle said, “On Friday evening the CCP commissioner requested us to provide wood for cremation and also cleared the amount, so we allowed five persons to be cremated,” He added, “We had repeatedly gone to the CCP office, requesting them to clear the bills. Since it didn’t pay, we decided that enough was enough. We had no money to pay the private supplier for the wood and therefore decided that we won’t supply wood to CCP till it cleared the bills.”

With bodies lying uncremated, the Goa Medial College and Hospital morgue was getting overcrowded, forcing officials to keep bodies in an open room for short periods of time. On Thursday, four bodies were lying outside the morgue due to lack of space. The morgue is designed to accommodate 66 bodies. About 39 of those in the morgue are unidentified bodies from various places awaiting disposal. One of the bodies, that of a male, has been in the morgue since March 5, 2009.

26 September 2009, The Times of India, Goa edition