Too poor to die

The rising cost of grave makes death a luxury

Burying the dead in a city of 30 million alive is getting harder as the cost of land goes up for both due to overpopulation.

The official rate of a grave in the city is now 14,300 rupees. Moreover, the gravedigger charges Rs25,000 or higher depending upon the graveyard, locality and the effort to dig the grave.

A gravedigger Ali at Sakhi Hasan said that the people wanted to bury their dead alongside the graves of their beloved ones. As the graveyard is almost full so it is difficult to dig a grave at the desired place so we charge extra to accommodate them.

He said charges vary according to the status and after a bit of haggling, most deals are struck between 35,000 to 100,000 rupees. The Karachi administrator Murtaza Wahab could not be reached despite repeated attempts. However, the spokesman Ali Hasan Sajid of his office was well aware of the shortage of graveyards in the city. He said the government was trying to procure more land for this purpose.

According to Sajid, 55 acres of land was allotted by the Sindh government recently in suburban Saeedabad and another 16 acres of land was allocated in Surjani Town. There are 203 graveyards in the city which are being overseen by KMC, cantonment boards, and communities, he added.

On the other hand, the data provided by the KMC says there are more than 200 graveyards out of which 38 are being run by the KMC. Almost 100 other graveyards are being run by different communities and the rest are the cemeteries belonging to various minorities.

An official on the condition of anonymity said that the data could not translate the actual figures. He said the KMC was running 42 graveyards in the city while there were more than 100 graveyards which were overseen by different communities. For instance, the Bohra community had portions of Sakhi Hasan and Mewashah graveyards. Recently, the community was provided land at Superhighway for the graveyards at a subsidised rate.

About the extra charges being received by gravediggers at different graveyards, he said, “There is no staff of KMC deployed at any graveyard. One graveyard needs 150 to 250 people to look after the affairs and we cannot afford it. We don’t have funds to disburse salaries among such a huge staff so we have not posted any employee in the graveyards. The graveyards are being run by gravediggers on their own.”

This is the reason why the KMC cannot take any action against overcharging as they didn’t have any control over the independent gravediggers, he added.

The official sources said that the KMC had not made any arrangements for cleaning graveyards. They said the cleaning staff of the KMC was deployed in graveyards only on big occasions like Shab-e-Barat, Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha. The rest of the year, gravediggers clean graveyards on their own. Although the

Another senior official in the KMC said, “The prices are high because of the people’s demands. For instance, they want to bury their mother beside the grave of their father and are ready to pay an extra amount for this. We have ample space in the graveyard along the Northern bypass but people do not want to go there.”

An official said, “People want to bury their dead in a nearby graveyard. For this, they are ready to pay extra. This trend affects the low-income people who cannot even afford the fees of the KMC.”

Director Graveyards in the KMC Iqbal Pervez, responding to this situation said, “The government fees is mandatory. However, there is a self-help system in place whereby anyone in need of help can contact on phone numbers available with gravediggers. These numbers are displayed at all graveyards and anyone who cannot pay the government fees can contact us.” He said no one is refused a grave if he cannot afford to pay the fees.