The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) said on 1 April that bodies of Covid-19 patients who die at home must be taken care of by their relatives, while the civic body will lend help in the process.
Each locality’s ward officer will provide a body bag and four PPE kits for the kin, authorities informed. The guidelines state that they should be wearing the kit as they place the body in the bag and load it onto the hearse van.
PMC Chief Engineer Srinivas Gangaram Kandul also said that the relatives of the bereaved will need to upload the medical certificate specifying the cause of death, as well as their insurance form for Covid-related duties on the PMC's website to receive a cremation pass. The Aadhaar cards of the deceased and of those handling the body are also to be submitted.
"The local ward officer and the ward medical officer must post the details of the death on the Pune Municipal Corporation's WhatsApp group created for the purpose," Kandul communicated via video message, NDTV quoted.
He added that on reaching the crematorium, officials will take over the process, and unload the body from the vehicle.
The relatives will be given the remains around an hour after cremation.
"Not more than 10 people will be allowed at the crematorium," the PMC chief engineer noted.
Pune recorded the highest-ever single-day increase on Wednesday, 31 March with 8,553 new infections and 31 deaths. This figure is also only slightly lower than the all-time high for any city, below only Delhi’s spike on 8,593 cases on 11 November. Pune contributed over 20 percent of all cases in the state of Maharashtra, which is leading India’s COVID-19 surge.
Pune district had 3.25 lakh doses of vaccines administered doses by Wednesday evening. It has vaccinated a recorded number of 7.68 lakh people, which include healthcare workers, frontline workers, and senior citizens.
(With inputs from NDTV)
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