Firms can adopt graveyards for punyam

Corporate houses can now adopt graveyards and cremation grounds and earn blessings by ensuring that the last journey of departed souls is peaceful.

Private agencies and non-governmental organisations too can adopt and develop graveyards under the Fund Your City (FYC) programme being taken out by the cash-starved Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

However, no advertisements can be put up inside the last resting places and the agency or firm adopting them would have to do it as a philanthropic activity.

In other words, only punyam can be earned and no profit.

“Though the private player will be allowed to collect user charges, it would be on a no-profit no-loss basis, under the guidance of GHMC ward committees,” said a source.

There are 391 cremation and burial grounds in Hyderabad district and another 291 in Ranga Reddy district, all falling under Greater Hyderabad limits.

Once an agency adopts a crematorium or burial ground, the existing management committees comprising religious experts and local leaders will be restricted to an advisory role. The agency will be in charge of the burial ground.

GHMC officials are confident of convincing the committees to go for the new mode of operation since the condition of most burial grounds is pitiable.

“Besides ward committees, officials will also monitor and guide the agency on how to go about executing the project,” said the GHMC commissioner, Dr Sameer Sharma.

The project envisages providing space for memory plantation in the name of the dead, construction of storage room for ashes, providing bathrooms and other amenities for relatives, and construction of a hall to perform rituals.

The GHMC is planning to invite expression of interest from companies, NGOs, voluntary organisations, resident welfare associations and individuals soon.

Another aim of the innovative scheme is to protect the burial grounds from land sharks, who don’t distinguish between the living and the dead when it comes to land-grabbing.