Mumbai: Ashok Khondare is a 39-year-old vegetable seller in the western Indian city of Pune. He had already borrowed money to pay for his sister’s treatment when she died in a private hospital two weeks after being infected with Covid-19. Khondare not only had to deal with the tragedy of his sister dying of Covid-19. He also had find ways to return the loans as his money problems increased with his sister’s death.
The only available hearse driver charged 5,000 Indian rupees for a six-kilometre journey to the nearest crematorium. It wasfive times the usual rate. When Khondare reached the crematorium, he was told he will have to wait for more than 24 hours as there was a long queue of dead bodies. He agreed to pay another Rs 7,000 to jump the queue.
“I had been experiencing a terrible situation for a fortnight,” Khondare was quoted as saying by ‘Reuters’. “I couldn’t sleep or eat properly. I wanted to end this as early as possible and didn’t mind paying an irrational amount,” the vegetable seller added.
The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has created many shortages in India. There are shortages of oxygen, medicines and hospital beds. However, now with the daily death toll in India hovering around the 4,000-and above mark, there is acute shortage of wood for funeral pyres, hearses and crematorium slots. It is forcing people like Khondare to pay exorbitant amounts to perform the last rites of loved ones. Sources have also said that the daily death toll is being under-reported considering the bodies piling up in crematoriums across India.
“There is huge demand for firewood used for funeral pyres at crematoria, but supplies are not sufficient,” said Rohit Pardeshi. He is a firewood merchant in the city of Satara in Maharashtra.
Due to a local lockdown designed to curb the pandemic, there is a shortage of people to cut trees. Those workers who are available are asking for higher wages. “This has created a shortage of firewood and in the process prices have skyrocketed,” Pardeshi added.
Retail prices for firewood are up by at least 30 per cent. They have more than doubled in some areas, said a second firewood seller in the same city.
In Uttar Pradesh, 24-year-old Mukul Chaudhary faced similar problems after his mother died in Lucknow. The ambulance driver who dropped his mother off at the hospital for 5,000 rupees charged even more to take her body to the crematorium. “We had to beg him not to overcharge us further,” Chaudhary said.
Firewood for the cremation cost double the normal rate. The priest who performed the last rites charged the family Rs 5,000 rupees. It was five times the usual amount.
Rohit Jangam, a Hindu priest in Satara, said many priests there were refusing to enter crematoriums out of fear. Those who were willing were charging higher prices.
“It is too risky to perform the last rites of those died because of coronavirus,” Jangam has been quoted as saying by ‘Reuters’. “If someone asks, I do, but I charge more since I am taking the risk,” he added.
OXYGEN RACKET
For Covid-19 patients who manage to survive, black marketing of medical supplies is rampant. Desperate family members pay huge sums in what is still a low-income country.
In New Delhi, oxygen cylinders have changed hands for as much as 70,000 rupees. It is 20 the usual price and many times the monthly salary of the average Indian. Police have made more than 100 arrests in New Delhi in cases connected with overcharging, including for drugs, ambulance services and hospital beds.
Arveena Sharma, a 28-year-old lawyer from Noida has helped more than a dozen Covid-19 patients who are friends and relatives get oxygen and medical supplies in the last month. Almost all of them have overpaid significantly. “They’re like vultures,” she said of those selling black market drugs. “You are standing in front of me with something which might save me and you’re looking at my pocket,” she lamented.
