A labourer who spent his life in poverty, died with misfortune as his last rites were performed on a roadside due to in access of money. Till now, money used to decide the lifestyle of a person but has now taken a job of deciding his last rites as well.
The labourer, identified as Mohan Rathod, passed away at 2:00 am on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. About five hours later his body was brought to the crematorium for performing final rites. The crematorium administrators asked the family for Rs 2,500 as charges for using the facility. But as the family couldn’t afford this much, Mohan’s body got denied to be cremated there. Due to the ongoing tension of lockdown, There was more shortage of money in the family. Not having the ability to afford the hiked expenses of utilizing the crematorium, kin of 45-year-old tribal labourer determined to carry out his last rites on the roadside in Ena, an NRI village in Surat district, on Tuesday.
The family asked their community members for help who pitched in with wood for the last rites. “Mohan’s household may be very poor and so they can not afford to pay the cash in the present post-lockdown disaster,” mentioned Arjun Rathod, a neighbour to TOI. After taking the physique to the crematorium at around 7 am when the neighbours went to get the keys of the crematorium, the administrator informed them that the charge has been hiked to Rs 2,500. “The cremation expenses had been Rs 1,200 until just a few days in the past which has now more than doubled without informing all of the communities within the village,” Bharat Rathod who is a businessman, alleged.
In inhabitants of around 3,500 in Ena Seva Samiti that manages the crematorium, a minimum of one member from every household stays overseas. Whereas the village boasts of recent facilities like frequent water purification plant, concrete roads, cricket stadium and nationally acclaimed Navratri celebrations, it has all been developed with NRI donations. Atul Patel, one of its members, mentioned that the administration committee was determined to extend expenses because it was proving expensive to handle the crematorium now because the common donations from NRIs have stopped coming. “We don’t have any possibility however to extend the fees,” he added.
