More than four years after it was constructed, the gas-based crematorium here might finally become fully functional in the coming days.
MoU
The crematorium was built at more than Rs.70 lakh at Mink Shola in 2012. As per the memorandum of understanding signed in 2010 between the Udhagamandalam Municipality and the Rotary Club of Ootacamund, it was decided that the Rotary Club would handle the maintenance. But, a number of complications, including a failed trial run, led to the abandoning of the crematorium since 2012.
The maintenance of the crematorium also passed into the hands of the Udhagamandalam Municipality, which, in turn, outsourced the work to a Chennai-based company. The crematorium is designed to use wood as well as Liquefied Petroleum Gas to incinerate bodies.
With burial grounds quickly filling up, there is need to make the crematorium fully functional soon. Therefore, the municipality is working on a series of trial runs with dead tree stumps and human cadavers in the coming days.
Health Officer and Commissioner (in-charge) of Udhagamandalam Municipality V. Prabhakaran said that in a couple of days, the efficiency of the facility would be tested by incinerating a tree stump.
The municipality had also written to the health department to hand over any donated cadavers or unclaimed bodies for incineration.
Unclaimed bodies
The Dean of Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital has also been asked to inform the health department of any unclaimed bodies that need urgent disposal.
They would be brought here to test the facility, municipality officials said.
