The health department’s clearance is no longer required to hand over the body of a Covid-19 patient to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for cremation.

“Formal request from the department of health and family welfare, government of West Bengal to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for disposal of dead body, shall no longer be required,” read a letter sent by the health department to the commissioner of the civic body earlier this week.

Till now, if a person died after testing positive for Covid-19, the hospital where the death occurred needed to fill in a declaration form and attach to it the death certificate and result of the Covid-19 test. The hospital would send the form to the health department and the CMC, seeking permission to hand over the body to the civic authorities for cremation.

The health department would then give permission to the CMC and the hospital for cremation.

“The whole thing was done through WhatsApp. It would take about two hours to get the clearance,” said an official of a private hospital. Now, it will take barely 30 minutes to complete the process.

An official said omitting the health department’s role would ease the burden on Swasthya Bhavan and reduce delay in releasing bodies.

Bank robbed

Three masked and armed men entered a bank posing as customers and robbed Rs 17 lakh around 3.15pm on Friday. Three suspects have been arrested and guns and ammunition seized from them.

“Some people outside the bank tried to stop the robbers from fleeing. Some currency notes fell on the ground during the scuffle,” an officer said.