The electric furnaces at two steel city burning ghats have become non-operational owing to overload of bodies coming for cremation.

All four furnaces at Bhuiyandih-based Subarnarekha ghat have tripped and two at Parvati ghat in Jugsalai are facing the same problem.

Subarnarekha ghat, which is reserved for cremating Covid bodies after 1 pm, is facing a challenging time as over 50 bodies are coming for cremation daily. With the furnaces not functioning, Covid bodies are also being cremated on wood.

Subarnarekha burning ghat at Bhuiyandih in Jamshedpur ealier last week. Bhola Prasad

Subarnarekha ghat’s managing committee joint secretary Ganesh Rao confirmed all the four furnaces have tripped due to overload of bodies. “The furnaces stopped functioning one after another. One of the furnaces should be functional tomorrow while the rest would also be in order in two-three days. Covid bodies were also being cremated on wood. There’s no other option,“ Rao added.

Parvati ghat managing committee secretary Dipendra Bhatt said the furnaces were being repaired and it would take a day or two to make them operational.

The managing committee hardly found any mechanics to repair the furnaces before a team was finally located. “It was a testing time for us in finding mechanics. We found a team which had repaired the furnaces on earlier occasions,” Bhatt added.

According to him, the coils of the furnaces were damaged due to the overload.

“The furnaces broke down since bodies are coming for cremation one after another. The furnaces have limited capacity. Around 25 bodies are cremated in both the furnaces, which functioned for over 13 hours without a break. The furnaces also needed regular maintenance which was not possible in these circumstances,” Bhatt informed.

Over 40 bodies are coming for cremation at the ghat. “Fifty one bodies were cremated on Saturday. Since the furnaces are not functioning, all the bodies are cremated on wood. The ghat remains jam packed throughout the day. The cremation stretches till midnight most of the time,” he said.

The ghat managing committee secretary said timber was being supplied daily to cremate the bodies. “Truckload of timber is dumped every night at the ghat, otherwise bodies cannot be cremated. Presently, all bodies are cremated on wood since the furnaces were not functioning,” Bhatt said.

Asked if the ghat premises were being sanitised, he said there was no need as such since the area of the crematorium was spacious. “We sanitise the ghat in intervals. We have our own equipment,” he added.