Late to rites, NRIs set up mortuaries in Punjab
Wednesday, May 25, 2011http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_late-to-rites-nris-set-up-mortuaries-in-punjab_1547154
Over 50 lakh NRIs from Punjab have been facing a peculiar family problem back home. Their inability to take part in the last rites of their family members, for sometimes they are practically unable to reach their village on time to join their family here in the mourning.
A group of NRIs lately joined hands to build mortuaries in the Doaba region of Punjab in order to facilitate preservation of bodies till they are able to come back to perform the last rites.
“At times they need to preserve a body for over a week,” said Satnam Channa, former secretary of the NRI Sabha at Jalandhar. In the last year over a dozen mortuaries have come up which are being exclusively financed and managed by the NRIs.
While some of them have been donating private landfor raising mortuaries, others have taken space at the government hospitals to construct one. In Bundala village, near Jalandhar, for instance, the NRIs have upgraded the mortuary at the government hospital and installed the cooling system in it.
“They do not mind allowing non-NRIs to make use of it, if need be,”said Satnam.
A formal permission is taken from the state government for the purpose and the NRIs make their investment without any right to claim the building, said a senior official in Jalandhar. He said the NRIs had also deployed cremation vans for the purpose at various villages, which would take care of the body in the absence of any family member being around.
Sometimes, he said , the parents of an NRI would be too old to undertake the responsibility of handling a body. “In that case a deputed staff would take due care to preserve the body till the NRI arrived”, he added.
At times, he said, mortal remains are also kept at the mortuaries.
