The Government has directed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to create a common portal with the city police and the government hospitals for better coordination in disposal of unclaimed dead bodies.
The comprehensive policy guidelines issued by the Municipal Administration & Urban Development Department here on Tuesday called for an orderly disposal of such bodies to prevent epidemic or any other health hazard, hence it wanted the municipal corporation to identify voluntary bodies involved in the work and having its own graveyard to be chosen for the work. As per the rules, the police officials will initially try to identify the body on receiving the information about the unclaimed dead bodies, take photos and register a case upon which the look out notices would be issued to the control room and the media.
The information would be uploaded to the Crime Information System (CIS) and the unclaimed dead body would be kept in deep freezers in the government mortuaries for making claims up to 72 hours in cold storage process and intimate the police.
A three-day time would be given to establish the identity of the body and to make a claim on the body by the family member or relatives. If the body is not identified within three days, a communication would be sent to the medical and health officers of the civic body by the police to dispose of the body after intimating the head of the departments of Osmania and Gandhi Hospitals, respectively.
Forensic departments would conduct the post-mortem and three more days would be given to identify the body after which the body would be tagged and handed over for disposal. Cremation or burial of the body would be in the presence of the sub-registrar of birth and deaths of the GHMC and a Sub-Inspector, according to orders issued by MA&UD secretary Navin Mittal.
The orders have been issued after the High Court nudged the Government to come out with a policy because of the unclaimed bodies piling up in government mortuaries and disposal becoming cumbersome.
“Our personnel have been disposing of unclaimed bodies with the help of police so far. Now we will decide on modalities to choose a voluntary body to help us do the job,” said Additional Commissioner (Health & Sanitation) N. Ravi Kiran.
