Depleting burial space

The development of new graveyards in Karachi has fallen far short of its ever-growing population. As most cemeteries in the city are running short of burial space, prices of graveyards are registering an unstoppable increase so much so that buying a burial space has gone beyond the reach of people of average means. In the metropolis, currently the price of one burial space is as high as Rs80,000, though the KMC has fixed Rs9,000 for one burial space for cemeteries under its control. Most graveyards in the city are now left with no space for burial, so clever grave diggers bury several bodies in one grave, and the time lag is short.

The KMC manages a total of 39 cemeteries in the city, and now it has closed six of these for burials. These six graveyards are located in densely-populated areas. In order to meet the increasing demand for burial spaces, the government is developing two new spacious cemeteries in Surjani Town and along the Link Road on Superhighway. These are to be opened for burials soon. However, residents of several low-income and heavily-populated areas of the city are demanding the development of new graveyards, and they say they cannot afford to buy space to bury their dead at the current prices.

Land grabbers are quite active in the city and graveyard lands too have fallen prey to their insatiable greed. They have gobbled up large chunks of graveyard lands, and this has considerably contributed to the shortage of burial space in the city. The authorities need to deal sternly with land grabbers. A family is known to have been living within a well-known cemetery of the city for more than 80 years. The family members are grave diggers, sell flowers and work to keep the graveyard clean. They are doing useful work. This reminds of Arundhati Roy’s novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness in which poor people live in makeshift houses within a graveyard in Old Delhi. Some of them also run guesthouses within the premises of the cemetery.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2022.

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