On January 14,
2015 Mamata Banerjee, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Government of West Bengal
inaugurated a new Burning Ghat with eight electric furnaces at Nimtala with the
promise of making funeral less complicated and time-efficient. The new Ghat has
come up beside the existing one and will be operational from January 15, 2015.
A police outpost has been built in front of the new crematorium.
With the
inauguration of the new crematorium, Nimtala Burning Ghat becomes the largest
in Kolkata. As part of the Nimtala Project, the KMC has renovated the
Rabindranath Tagore memorial. The poet was cremated at the Nimtala Ghat in
1941. Cremation at the Nimtala Ghat started as early as 1827. The construction
of the new crematorium and the renovation of the Tagore Memorial cost INR 25
crore.
On this occasion,
KMC handed over the maintenance of Shri Shri Ramakrishna Mahasmashan at
Cossipore to the Ramakrishna Mission. Shri Ramakrishna was cremated at the
Cossipore Ghat.
Sources at the
Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said the existing Burning Ghat at Nimtala
had four electric furnaces, of which three are operational and one is kept on
standby. A bereaved family often had to wait for hours — as long as four hours
at times — for cremation.
“In summer,
between 35 and 40 bodies are brought daily on average. During winter, the count
varies between 70 and 80,” said Atin Ghosh, the Mayoral Council
Member-in-Charge of Burning Ghats. The authorities hope the eight new furnaces
would reduce the waiting period.
The new
crematorium has a waiting area for the bereaved, toilets for men and women and
a Ghat on the Hooghly for family members to perform rituals. Of the four wooden
furnaces at the old burning Ghat, two have been modernised and the other two
will be upgraded soon.
“The
modernisation has halved the cremation time — from four to two hours. The smoke
from cremation is treated before being released in the air much above the
ground,” said a civic official.
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