KARSTEN MIRANDA
MARGAO: Every week, the police are alerted about a body being found on the road. While these cases are reported as unnatural deaths, the police are now in a quandary to dispose the bodies.
Communications between the Margao Town Police and Goa Medical College (GMC) have been strained on this issue for months now and reached an impasse after GMC refused to accept an unidentified corpse brought in by Margao Town Police.
The government hospital morgues are filled with unclaimed bodies thereby occupying space. The TB Hospital authorities refused to accept unknown bodies, while the GMC has put a condition that fresh bodies will be accepted only after the disposal of the unclaimed bodies preserved in the morgue.
In reaction to this development, Margao Town PI C L Patil said that the police will have no choice but to keep the bodies at the MMC premises.
Pointing out that the MMC is not interested in performing their duties, Patil said that it is ultimately the responsibility of the MMC to clear the bodies and that the MMC is allotted funds per corpse by the government for disposal.
Patil had earlier asked MMC Chairperson Babita Angle and Chief Officer Y B Tawde to intervene and get the bodies disposed off from the GMC.
Patil added that the number of unknown and unclaimed bodies has increased in recent days and many of the dead are found to be homeless persons. He said if the municipality cannot dispose off the bodies on time, the authority and funds may be given to the Margao police to carry out the disposal.
However, MMC Chief Officer Y B Tawde said that MMC has disposed off 19 bodies till date. Some 2 or 3 remain to be disposed now which will be done as soon as the report from the police arrives.
Stating that the issue had been resolved now, Patil attributed the delay to the municipality not having a hearse van of its own and that the ambulance that was handed over to the MMC is being converted into a hearse van.
It may be recalled that the MMC was earlier totally dependent on the police department’s hearse van to carry the dead as the past council had condemned the old dilapidated hearse van but without making any provision to replace the vehicle.
Tawde also pointed out that there had been some delay on the part of the administration to sanction the money for the disposal.
MMC sources added that this issue has been going on for the last three years with the State government delaying the reimbursement of the assured money to the civic body. It may be recalled that last year this was taken up during a meeting with the MMC. The then district collector Sachin Shinde had said there were 19 bodies and after evaluations it was revealed that it was due to the fact that the funds had not been sanctioned for the same.
Sources further added that the MMC has difficulties in getting people to dispose the bodies, as labourers are not willing to carry the highly decomposed bodies from the mortuary for the final rites.
While the MMC is allotted funds of Rs 2,500 per corpse by the government, sources stated that they spend Rs 1,600 on the disposal of each body as Rs 1,100 goes as crematorium charges and R 500 for labour charges.
