As COVID-19 deaths mount, Delhi crematoriums struggle to keep up

In the last week of April, a crematorium in Delhi’s Sarai Kale Khan area was expanded due to the rising number of COVID-19 deaths. Fifty new platforms were under construction on a lawn inside the crematorium premises, and another 100 were being built right outside the premises. The contractors told The Caravan that they were given seven days to complete the project.

“They [South Delhi Municipal Corporation] warned us the situation is very delicate and really bad,” Sunil Kumar, the chief functionary at New Indian Educational and Cultural Society, said. “Even if we make a hundred pyres today, such a big thing they said … and we have made them, they will also not be enough.”