Dhaka Correspondent:
Just as finding a place to lay one’s head while alive in the capital Dhaka is expensive, finding a grave after death has become even more difficult. Especially in the capital’s largest and most traditional Azimpur graveyard, the pressure is increasing every day, and the price of graves is also increasing.
An average of 25 to 30 bodies are buried in the Azimpur graveyard every day. This number stands at 750 to 900 per month and 9,000 to 10,800 bodies are buried per year. As a result, the cemetery space crisis is becoming increasingly acute.
A grave lease system is in place to deal with this crisis. Graves are leased in the Azimpur graveyard in four stages—
5 lakh taka for 10 years, 10 lakh taka for 15 years, 15 lakh taka for 20 years, 20 lakh taka for 25 years, that is, the cost of taking a long-term grave lease is equal to or more than the price of a flat. As a result, even finding a final address after death is now beyond the reach of the common man.
The victims complain that even after paying the government-set fee, in many cases they have to pay extra money due to brokers and influential circles. Many say that graves, like flats, have now become a business.
Experts believe that this crisis is deepening due to the lack of initiatives to build new cemeteries with the increase in Dhaka’s population. According to human rights activists, the transformation of graves into a business after death is a terrible social and humanitarian crisis, which cannot be solved without government monitoring and effective initiatives.
The people of Dhaka now have a sad reality – the price of flats to survive is out of reach, and the price of graves after death is also competing with the flats.