CUTTACK: Belonging to Pubansha village under Asureswar gram panchayat, 60-year-old Batakrishna Mandal has given his village crematorium, locally called Padia Danda, a new lease of life. Every month, he spends his pension money to maintain the facility and has been doing so for the last two-and-a-half years.
His initiative of maintaining the Padia Danda began with a banyan sapling. During his stint at the Subhadra Mahatab College in the village where he worked as a watchman, he saw some workers uprooting a banyan sapling that had grown from a cracked wall of the college in 2019. He picked up the sapling but finding no suitable land to plant it, he went to the crematorium.
As the four acres of land of the crematorium was covered in dense bushes, he decided to plant the banyan sapling and subsequently began cleaning the area. He then began visiting the crematorium every day to water the sapling and clean the unwanted vegetation. It took him nearly a year to completely clean the Padia Danda, which was used by people of two gram panchayats - Kentalo and Asureswar.
Not only covered in unwanted vegetation, but the crematorium’s rest shed was also lying in a dilapidated condition and there was no electricity connection. He then repaired and coloured the rest shed by spending Rs 20,000 and also installed a tube well at the expenditure of Rs 15,000. Apart from getting electricity connection to the crematorium, Batakrishna also put two water tubs with drinking water for birds and stray animals there.
But the work did not end there. “Finding the crematorium clean, people started resorting to open defecation there. I had to speak to all of them about maintaining the sanctity of the place and put up sign boards across the crematorium ground to create awareness among people,” said Batakrishna, who also planted 30 fruit-bearing and flowering trees at the ground.
Batakrishna retired in May this year and gets a pension of Rs 15,000 every month. “I have just three daughters and all of them are married now. There is no responsibility of their education or marriage so I use my pension for the upkeep of the Padia Danda,” said Batakrishna, who saves a meagre sum of his pension for himself and his wife Laxmipriya and spends the rest on the crematorium.
After completing his daily chores, he goes to the Padia Danda that is 1 km away from his house and starts cleaning it, watering the trees and removing the waste materials. Every day, he spends two hours each in the morning and evening cleaning the crematorium. And now that the area is clean, the youths use it to exercise and play games. Sarpanch of Asureswar Gautami Das said his noble deeds will inspire others in the village to do good social work.