CHENNAI: Charging money for funeral services at Corporation controlled burial grounds and crematoriums will attract severe punishment, Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy warned on Thursday.
At the council meet held here, he was responding to a question from ward 194 councillor M S Baskaran who said that he had received complaints from resident welfare associations saying that crematorium assistants were overcharging for funeral services. Duraisamy said that no charges should be levied and warned that officials who fail to check the practice will face severe punishment.
“I had already asked for steel boards to be erected at crematoriums to declare that the service is for free,” he said. Duraisamy added that funeral ground assistants in extended areas will be brought into corporation payroll in the near future.
The Mayor announced that Rs 100 crore out of the Rs 335 crore allocated for the corporation to carry out restoration work along Cooum river has been released. The first phase, including deployment of containment booms to prevent solid waste pollution, developing parks, removing garbage from along the banks and constructing a 23-km long wall will be complete in three years’ time, Duraisamy said.
The corporation will also scan and digitise important tender bid documents in a bid to prevent damage or even loss of material. Nearly one crore pages will be scanned, the Mayor said.
The civic body has also written to the State government to take control of four hospitals under State’s control in expanded areas of Thiruvotriyur, Manali, Okkiyam Thuraipakkam and Injambakkam.