Noida morgue scrambles for funds, officials pin hope on CSR help: ‘Have no choice’

The District Magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar, however, said efforts are being made to rectify the issue. “We are trying to do everything possible to rectify this. A letter has been sent to the Health Department in Lucknow…”

DM Maneesh Kumar Verma told The Indian Express. “CMO (Chief Medical Officer) has been informed and we are trying to get the funds at the earliest. If the funds are not available from them (Health department), I will personally arrange for the deep freezer through CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).”

CMO Dr Sunil Kumar Sharma claimed that “all the necessary inspection has been done and a letter has been sent to the Health Department with the estimates”.

Sharma, in fact, has been aware of this issue for a while with officials at the post mortem house regularly approaching his office for help. “When the expenditure involves more than Rs 20,000, we need technical sanctions. The freezer would need an investment of Rs 23 lakh and we are waiting for the funds,” he explained, adding his department is “trying to get funds through CSR.”

This lone post mortem house caters to the entire Gautam Buddha Nagar district. Unidentified bodies, brought in by the police, have to be kept here for 72 hours to comply with the law. In the absence of a freezer, a cold room or even an air conditioner, the stench of the decomposing bodies makes it impossible to even stand inside the morgue.

The morgue has two rooms – one of them exclusively for the unidentified bodies. Behind these rooms is the doctor’s office. There is no place to sit for the other three employees, nor water to drink.

Though it is not their job, the employees carry out the last rites of the unidentified people too.

“There is nothing we can do. We don’t have the power. It is all under the CMO,” a police official standing outside the post mortem house said.

The employees of the morgue were reluctant to speak this time. “We had told you nothing will happen. Our seniors are blaming us for making it (condition of the morgue) public,’’ an employee said. “Two electricians had come to fix the lights and the AC but they ran away from the entrance itself because of the stench.”

A senior medical official closely associated with the morgue told The Indian Express: “Everybody… every politician, senior officers in the Health department, every doctor… every DM who was (posted) here knows about it but nobody has ever done anything.” He further said, “I have no other option…We have to live and work with bodies that lay decomposing here.”

Rohit, who has come here bearing bodies of his cousin and grandfather, who died after being electrocuted in Ghaziabad, said the stench is making him “sick”.

An ambulance driver, Sonu, who brings the bodies here regularly, said it is the people who accompany their dead here for post mortem who suffer more. “For us, it has become a regular affair now,” he added.

Deepak Kumar, who runs a small tea shop outside the post mortem house, too said he has become used to the stench now. “Pani mein pada pada toh patthar bhi bhari ho jata hai… (Even a stone becomes heavier once left in water for long),” he remarked.

Kumar has even seen days when bodies were kept outside in absence of space in the morgue. “I have seen many policemen vomiting because of this stench,” he said. “If I die, I would never want my body to be brought here to rot.”