Patna (Bihar): The second wave of Covid-19 has crippled the country badly, and has scattered a lot of families. The Covid patients have been facing a shortage of oxygen, hospital beds and medicines. People are literally being looted in the name of medical facilities, and now undertakers are also demanding large amounts for cremations.
The journey to the crematorium after death is even more frightening. The family of the deceased not only wait in long lines but also pay a hefty amount. Not only this, the rate of everything in the crematorium has been fixed.
ETV Bharat took stock of the situation at the Bans Ghat in Patna where the are fixed for the cremation of bodies. Even, a package has been made by the brokers. The group of brokers includes ambulance drivers to shopkeepers inside and outside.
Earlier, the government has ordered free treatment and cremation for Covid patients, but despite that, the undertakers are demanding 15,000 rupees for the cremation.
Read: Constable helps carry body to cremation ground in UP
"Here the Municipal Corporation does not give free wood to everyone, without contacts you'll be roaming here and there whole day. I will get the wood delivered to you, up to 10,000 thousand rupees will be used for the woods, 2000 to carry the body and wood, 1500 to arrange the pyre, and 2100 for ascension", said an undertaker at the Bans ghat at Patna.
Read: UP man takes wife's body on bicycle for cremation
About electric cremation, one undertaker said, "if it had been night, it would have been quicker, but there is a lot of risk during the daytime. The body will be burnt in half the time in the electric crematorium. Let the dead come first, we have contacts till Gulabi Ghat."
Read: Overwhelmed crematoriums mar last rites of Covid deceased
