Amrapur (Gandhinagar): Exactly 42 years ago, 14-year-old Arjun Paghdar, a resident of Keshod town in Junagadh district, attended the final rites of a relative.

At the crematorium, he saw precious wood being burnt to cremate the body, leaving a lasting impact on the mind of a young nature lover.

Now, 56-year-old Arjun ‘bhai’ Paghdar (56), farmer-turned-innovator, has been awarded at the 10th National Grassroots Innovation and Outstanding Traditional Knowledge Awards 2019 held at Amrapur village near Gandhinagar for his newly developed innovative and environment friendly crematorium.

“If I can’t grow forests, at least I should help in saving them in whatever way I can as an individual. I have seen that on an average, 400 kg of wood is used to cremate one dead body. In India, millions of tons of wood is burnt every year to cremate dead bodies. Electric and gas-based crematoriums are being used now, but these are mostly in cities. In rural areas, dead bodies are still cremated using wood, posing a major environmental challenge at a time when we are fighting global warming,” Paghdar, who dropped out of school in Class 12 said.

Merging religious sensitivities and concern for environment, Paghdar has designed a biomass gasification-based cremation process, which ensured minimum heat loss.

“I have placed doors in the front and at the rear end of the structure to perform Hindu rituals. The inner side of the top cover is filled with cera-wool, which can tolerate high temperature. Blowers and nozzles are provided to release air to accelerate the cremation process,” he said.

A censor based temperature meter is also attached with this design where people can temperature level inside this new crematorium system.

He added that charcoal filters and caustic soda filters have been provided for air filtration and a chimney for air exhaust is also there.

“The average time taken to burn a dead body (of about 80kg) is 70-90 minutes, consuming 70 to 80 kg of wood as compared to 3-4 hours in conventional method consuming around 400 kg of wood. According to a rough estimate, if we use this system across rural India, we can save at least 40 acres of forests per day,” the innovator said.

In fact, Paghdar’s environment friendly and culturally acceptable crematorium is being put up at Bhamnasa village near Keshod.

Moreover, in order to promote this new system, Gujarat Energy Development Agency (GEDA), a government of Gujarat, has also given funds to Paghdar to make one such crematorium to be put up at Veraval town in Gir-Somnath district.

“I have done my job as an innovator and now it’s up to the society and the government to adopt this environment friendly crematorium system to save our precious forests,” he said.