KARIMNAGAR: To facilitate funerals of COVID-19 victims, the Municipal Corporation of Karimnagar (MCK) enhanced wages of the team conducting funerals from Rs 8,000 to Rs 18,000 for each funeral. A total of ten members have been allocated specifically to conduct funerals of COVID-19 victims.
Mayor Y Sunil Rao had expressed concerns that even if their loved one died of Covid, kin of the victims were not coming forward to claim the bodies, owing to fears that they too would get infected.
A specific area has been allotted to cremate COVID victims — along an embankment of Manair river. While conducting funerals, the team wears PPE kits, and undergoes sanitisation before and after the funeral, the Mayor said, and added that their pay had been increased to instil confidence. T
The health department staff also sanitise the dead bodies before handing them over to MCK funeral staff at crematoriums. Government hospital authorities have arranged a special ambulance for transporting Covid patients. Only a few families take away dead bodies of their relatives, and for the remaining victims funerals are conducted at the crematorium.