Gas for crematoria

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay is planning to convert all the 11 electric crematoria run by it to piped gas to make them more environment friendly, reported Daily News and Analysis (DNA) on July 7, 2014. "This effort will not only save resources like wood and electricity, but crematoria run on piped natural gas will take only two hours to burn the body, as against wood, which takes up to eight hours,” Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive health officer revealed to the newspaper.
The conversion will be carried out in phases, beginning with the crematorium at Shivaji Park. In wood fired cremations about 300 kilos of firewood is required, and at present this is being given free in municipal and some private Hindu facilities. The civic body incurs an expenditure of Rs 1,900 to Rs 2,100 per body for cremation, DNA mentions.