This piece is literally on a down-to-earth issue — city's graveyards.

There are at present six graveyards under the management of the Dhaka City Corporation. They are: New Azimpur ■ graveyard. Old Azimpur graveyard. Banani graveyard. Mirpur Sahid Buddijibi graveyard, Ju-rain graveyard and the newly opened Uttara graveyard.

The new graveyard at Azimpur is now practically closed; the old one at Azimpur is open only for temporary graves. The new graveyard at Uttara is used for the same, no burial plot can be bought there. In other graveyards under the management of the City Corporation, particularly at Banani and some proportion of burial plots at Mirpur Buddhijibi and Jurain graveyards, burial is allowed on purchased plots.

Besides these corporation -managed graveyards, there are some private graveyards at Shajahanpur. Mohammadpur. Mirpur Section 11 and Karati-tola. East Rampura. Apart from these private graveyards, there are at least 15 small graveyards in the city.

In the city, space in the existing graveyards is rapidly running out. This is due mainly to two factors — the highly accelerated pressure of city population and the prediction of people to reserve or purchase grave space. If the present trend continues. it is apprehended that in the near future, scarcity of space for burial will figure as a very critical issue.

It is obvious to anyone that

in course of the last few years the population of the city has crossed 90 lakhs. With such rapid increase in population, the death rate has also increased. At the moment, it is understood that the City Corporation has no plan for expansion of the existing graveyard facilities. In these circumstances. on account of the rise in death rate in the city, the available space in the existing graveyards has come under extreme pressure.

Even though the City Corporation attempts to discourage reservation or purchase of space in the graveyards, it has little effect, as citizens prefer to reserve purchase grave space for their parents and near and dear ones. Thus the system of reservation purchase of grave space cannot be checked.

Apart from the reservation, there is provision for getting plot for immediate burial at Banani, Mirpur Sahid Buddijibi and Jurain graveyards. The rates are as follows: at Banani the rate is Tk 60.000 per plot for immediate burial and Tk 1.20,000 for reserved plot; at Mirpur Sahid Buddijibi graveyard. the rate for immediate burial is Tk 25.000 per plot and Tk 35,000 for reserved plot. The same latter rates apply in the case ol Jurain graveyard.

In each graveyard, there is a separate general area which is earmarked for burial free of cost. In this general area, graves are dug up one or two years after burial to make room for further burials. Although pits in the general area are available free.

burial in that area involves a good amount of expenditure for the relatives of the less privileged. This is due to the rising prices of burial materials.

It is thus felt that burying the dead in this city has assumed the dimension of a nightmare for the less privileged. We need hardly bother about the privileged people, since they or their relatives can afford to spend a large amount of money for buying plots for burial. What observers feel concerned about is the problem faced by the less privileged. To relieve them somewhat, it is strongly felt the concerned authority may write off the registration fee charged at the gates of graveyards and the prices of shroud and for the bamboo frame may be put under control. It is apprehended in some quarters that if the trend of rising cost of burial continues, the poor would be reduced to going around to raise donations to have a relative buried.

According to a report. Japan, which is a rich country but with acute land scarcity, deals, in some cases, with the problems of internment of their dead in its characteristic way: small cubicles on shelves are built in multi-storied complexes which are closed as corpses are interred therein.

Since even the dead cannot escape the effects of inflation, it is not perhaps too much to hope the government should interfere in keeping the prices of grave and of burial materials at a reasonable level.