Karnataka: 61 villages in Haveri district don’t have a burial ground

HAVERI: Death has turned into a peculiar problem in Hattimattur village in Haveri district, where there are no burial grounds, leaving the people with no option but to rest their loved ones on the sides of the roads.
Hattimattur is a village with a population of more than 10,000, and the lack of a burial ground is having the residents fretting over the afterlife of their family members and friends.
HAVERI:“We have to bury our loved ones by the side of the road. Performing the last rites is a very bad experience,” said Hattimattur resident Ningappa Talawar.
Hattimattur is not the only village in Haveri district that is faced with this problem.
The only burial ground in Holeanveri in Ranebennur taluk is more than a kilometre away from the village, and the road leading to it passes through a slushy paddy farm.
Ramanna Badiger, a resident of the village, said, “The authorities concerned must take cognisance of the problem and take corrective action.”
Across Haveri district, 61 of the 692 villages under the revenue department have no burial ground.
That Haveri happens to be chief minister Basavaraj Bommai’s home district makes the state of affairs more ironic.
Even in the remaining 631 villages, the road leading to the graveyards is poor in around 40% of them. Villagers’ repeated pleas and petitions to the district administration, seeking land for a burial ground have gone unheeded.
Tondur GP member Girish Angadi said that the burial ground was 6km from the village. Worse still, the condition of the road leading to the graveyard was poor, he added.
“It is very difficult to carry the dead over such a long distance, and many of the villagers have just been burying their loved ones by the sides of the road,” Angadi said. An official attributed the problem to the paucity of government land in the 61 villages in the district.
“We have issued orders to the respective tahsildars to purchase private land for a burial ground in these villages. But the villagers are unwilling to part with agricultural land, while others do not want a burial ground on their property,” he added.