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Mira Bhayandar: Encouraging eco-friendly cremations seems to be missing from the agenda of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC). This is evident by the fact that the electric crematorium unit and its chimney purchased by the civic administration for the crematorium in Mira Road has been gathering dust for the past several months.
The assembly and commissioning of the unit has been delayed by the concerned contractor for unknown reasons. This despite the fact that disposing the mortal remains of the departed in an eco-friendly manner has started gaining momentum in the twin-city.
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A total of 17 crematoriums are run by the civic administration across the twin-city out of which one is equipped with an electric powered unit and five have the facility of gas-fuelled pyres for eco-friendly cremations.
The MBMC has also installed air exhaust systems and installed compressor linked incinerators armed with wet scrubber chimneys and other apparatus to reduce carbon pollution at five crematoriums on the virtue of funds provided by the 15th finance commission.
However due to the lack of proper maintenance and apathy shown by the ground staff, complaints of technical glitches in the electric-powered /gas-fuelled pyres and thick black and nauseating smoke billowing from the chimneys are constantly reported by citizens.
For traditionally cremating a body, nearly 300 to 350 kg of wood is required for the open pyre which takes more than four hours for disposal while the gas and electric version not only takes less than half the time and saves wood, but also reduces emissions by almost by 60 percent.
57 Eco Friendly Cremations out of 2,409 This Year.
The MBMC which has been boasting about its efforts towards e-office mechanism and digitizing of records was unaware about the data related to the number of eco-friendly and wood-based cremations for the past couple of years.
However, manually sourced out figures from the solid waste management department revealed that out of the total 2,409 cremations, 131 and 26 were conducted on the gas-fuelled and electric powered pyres at 15 crematoriums respectively between January to July this year.
While the numbers were limited to 48 in 2010, the figures steadily rose to 84 in 2011, 106 in 2012, 111 in 2013 and 142 in 2014, which reveals a steady rise in the number of relatives adopting eco-friendly cremations.
