This story is from April 27, 2021

Delhi: Pushed to the limit, crematoria staring at acute wood shortage

With an unprecedented number of cremations taking place during the current wave of Covid-19, Delhi’s cremation ground operators are now staring at a shortage of wood. Each funeral pyre requires about 3-4 quintals of wood.
Delhi: Pushed to the limit, crematoria staring at acute wood shortage
NEW DELHI: With an unprecedented number of cremations taking place during the current wave of Covid-19, Delhi’s cremation ground operators are now staring at a shortage of wood. Each funeral pyre requires about 3-4 quintals of wood.
A senior civic official said that Delhi’s cremation grounds were likely to face wood shortage as the reserves were getting exhausted fast because of the increasing number of Covid-protocol funerals.
Nigambodh Ghat alone carried out 2,526 cremations between April 1 and 23, out of which 2,099 were wood-based. Over 8,000 quintals of wood were used in these cremations.
“The states from which we used to procure wood are themselves struggling to manage the increased demand,” the official said.
A manager from an NGO running a crematorium said that most of the wood in the capital comes from the Gadhganga-Hasanpur belt in UP.
“As the demand is high in UP also, contractors have refused to take new orders. Haryana Forest Development Corporation has agreed to send us 7,000 quintals of wood. They will be paid Rs 450 per quintal. But they will not be sending us more wood. We are in touch with Uttarakhand also,” another civic official said.
A funeral manager at the Karol Bagh crematorium stated that some contractors were now selling wood for rates as high as Rs 750 per quintal. “We get wood from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Till one month ago, wood was supplied at just Rs 400-500 per quintal,” he said.

An official in the south corporation also said that some of the supplying states like UP and MP were witnessing rise in internal consumption and hence, were not willing to send additional wood to us. “If the same situation continues, wood for cremations will also start being sold in the black market,” he added.
Meanwhile, East Delhi Municipal Corporation has issued orders to use cow dung cakes to reduce wood consumption. EDMC mayor Nirmal Jain said: “Though we are arranging more wood, use of cow dung cakes at Ghazipur and Seemapuri sites has been ordered. We faced a wood crisis on Saturday but things are now under control.”
North corporation mayor Jai Prakash said that the civic body was in touch with some neighbouring states to secure wood. A report revealed that while the Paschim Vihar facility was getting wood on a day-to-day basis, cremation grounds at Inderpuri and Narela were also short on stock.
Jitender Singh Shunty, incharge of the cremation ground in Seemapuri, said that they were using over 300 quintals of wood daily for cremations. “We have 40-50 tonnes of wood left. While the rates have increased in the market by Rs 100, we continue to provide wood at old rates,” he added.
A total of 3,472 Covid-protocol funerals took place in the city last week. The huge demand for wood can be gauged from the consumption patterns in Nigambodh and Punjabi Bagh—city’s two biggest crematoria— where more than 17,000 quintals of wood have been used in the last three weeks. While the capital has CNG/electric units in five crematoria, they are already overburdened. Some of them are even working round the clock.
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