HYDERABAD: A year has passed since the pandemic first hit the State, but citizens can’t still obtain a digital No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from police stations to claim bodies of Covid-19 patients. This is only making things worse for grief-stricken families. Protocol mandates that a family member or a relative must approach the local police station, get the NOC, and submit the same at the hospital concerned to claim the body of their loved one.
Trouble is that family members are, more often than not, primary contacts of patients. They could be exposed to the virus, and spread the disease to others on their visit to police stations. It appears that the State government has ignored this glitch in the protocol. “There is no mechanism in place to give digital NOCs,” said police officials. Ironically, the State government had issued travel permissions to thousands of people via a dedicated online platform, which was facilitated and managed by the police department, amid a full travel ban.
“The NOC is necessary to ensure that a person’s body is handed over to the bonafide family, and that the burial or cremation is done as per Covid-19 protocols,” said an official. In the early stages of the pandemic, families were asked to visit police stations wearing PPEs, but the practice has been stopped now, said police officials.