Punjab State Scheduled Castes Commission has directed the State Rural Development and Panchayat Department to start a solar or electric cremation facility for the State’s villages.
The commission chairman Rajesh Bagha on Sunday maintained that the common cremation grounds for people of all castes will be set up in Punjab as a step towards eradication of caste based discrimination.
He said that the State Rural Development and Panchayat Department has come out with a plan following the Commission’s recommendation and also advocated having electric crematoriums.
“In most of the villages in Punjab, there are separate cremation grounds for each community and these cremation grounds receive monetary grants from Governments at regular intervals,” pointed Bagha.
Calling for ending this trend, he said that only one common cremation ground should be set up in villages and cities if it can suffice keeping in view the population.
He also said that cremation grounds should have facilities for electric cremation as it would reduce environmental pollution and the need for fuel besides saving trees.
“Senior advocate of Punjab and Haryana High Court HC Arora had brought this matter to the attention of the Commission through an application in which he had stated that steps must be initiated for establishing common cremation grounds in order to get rid of the menace of casteism,” said Bagha.
He said that the Commission had instructed the state Rural Development and Panchayat Department, which prepared a plan for constructing common cremation grounds. “The department had also formulated a plan to disburse a grant of Rs five lakh per village to those villages who are willing to build common cremation grounds,” he added.
Bagha said that the Commission has now directed the department to modify the plans and include the facility of solar and electric cremation facility as well. “People face difficulty in performing the last rites of their near and dear ones owing to separate cremation grounds which often lack proper infrastructure,” he said.
There should be proper arrangement of drinking water, electricity, concretisation of approach roads to the cremation grounds, planting of trees in the cremation grounds, construction of permanent sheds and platforms apart from having facility of solar and electric cremation so that people face no problem in cremating their beloved ones, he added.