NEW DELHI: In Uttar Pradesh, relatives of the dead wait up to 10 hours at crematorium to lay their loved ones to rest. Token system has been clamped at electric crematoriums around the state. Crew at crematorium in Lucknow work for long 20 hours a day. Incidentally, crematoriums in Gujarat too issue tokens for cremations.
Families are unable to perform rites in respects for their members who die of covid. People arriving with bodies are first issued tokens after which they then wait their turn for long hours outside the crematorium with the body. There have been instances where people have brought in their dead around 9.30 am morning and been able to cremate it only at 8 late night.
Unsafe conditions
Allegations are also rife that workers at electric crematorium work without adequate safety gears. Many of them make do with just masks on. The Baikand Dham Gulalghat crematorium in Lucknow has two furnaces operating. On an average, 30 bodies arrive here each day. Cremation of a body took one hour previously, say the crematorium crew. Now it takes up to two hours owing to covid protocol, said Chief Engineer RN Tipathi at Lucknow Coroporation.
UP hard-hit
In UP, the daily cases figure over 10,000 since a week now. The highest number during the first wave stood around 7000 per day. Districts Prayag Raj, Varanasi and Kanpur are severely hit. Interestingly, Chief Minster Yogi Adityanath kept himself busy with election campaign in other states even as UP entered the second and more deadlier wave of the pandemic.
