Burial of the dead becomes a costly exercise

The city’s graveyards have run out of space and now gravediggers are charging exorbitant amounts

LAHORE:

With its population growing rapidly, it seems that Lahore is running out of space for both the living and the dead. Consequently, its residents, regardless of which faith they are associated with, are having a hard time finding affordable burial spots in the city’s existing cemeteries.

The Punjab Shehr-e-Khamoshan Authority, which has the mandate of regulating graveyards in the province, has proven to be a silent spectator whilst Lahore’s existing graveyards are in a state of decline with many missing boundary walls and gravediggers charge whatever they desire given the scarcity of burial ground.

As per a survey carried out by The Express Tribune, the average charges for making a grave in any of Lahore’s graveyards are between Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000. Whereas, the cost of making a grave in government cemeteries is fixed at Rs 10,500. Muhammad Yousuf, a gravedigger at Miani Sahib, the city’s biggest cemetery, told The Express Tribune that inflation has impacted burials as well. “Apart from the cost of the grave, a shroud for the deceased costs anywhere from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 and the laborers who dig the grave charge Rs 10,000.”

However, as per Yousuf, the rich do not care about the charges but the middle class insist on paying the government rate only. “Whereas, the poor have to rely on philanthropists or welfare institutions to be able to afford a burial place.” The high rates and scarcity of burial spaces impacts the Christian community equally if not more. Salim Iqbal, a Christian leader from Lahore, told The Express Tribune that the graveyard spaces for the Christian population in Lahore had shrunk to an unprecedented extent. “For instance, Youhanabad in Lahore has the largest Christian population in South Asia but it has only two graveyards. One of those cemeteries has run out of capacity while the other has minuscule space left.” Iqbal further informed that after the Bihar Colony Kot Lakhpat Graveyard, ran out space the community has been forced to build graves on top of the old ones.

“We have another site for a graveyard near the Children’s hospital but that has been encroached upon the hospital itself and no one seems to care,” Iqbal regretted. When asked about the high burial rates, Iqbal said that due to a lack of space the Christian community was forced to pay between Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000 for the burial site alone. As per Rashid Karamat Butt, a former chairman of a local union council in Lahore, the only people that did not have to pay high costs for burial in Lahore were those with communal lands. However, Butt said that only those were long-term residents of the communal lands could be buried here, therefore those who are “tenants or from different cities have to bury their dead in the city’s graveyards.”

Since, maintenance and provision of facilities at government owned cemeteries is a responsibility of Punjab Local Government Department, The Express Tribune asked the department about lack of space and high burial costs. “An amount of Rs 1.224 billion has been allocated for the establishment of model graveyards in different districts of the province, including Lahore. All metropolitan corporations have also been directed to improve the condition of graveyards in their cities,” the spokesperson of the department told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2022..