MUMBAI: In a stark example of administrative inefficiency, 125 unclaimed bodies have been in the city’s mortuaries for months, though their disposal is a rather simple task.

All that needs to be done is for an officer or a constable to hire a labourer for handling a corpse and a vehicle or a cart to carry it to a crematorium or a graveyard. The catch is that though funds are available for the process, the police person concerned has to produce receipts to claim the expenditure, the limit for each claim being Rs 1,500. The police say that in reality this money can never be claimed since it is next to impossible for labourers, cart pullers or even the drivers of private commercial vehicles like tempos to give receipts; sometimes, even drivers of private ambulances do not have receipts.

“Forget receipts, making a claim requires lengthy paperwork. Who has the time for that? If a police person disposes of an unclaimed body, he does so on humanitarian grounds as it is his own money that he spends. Most cops are not so charitably inclined and so do not bother,” said a police officer. “As for receipts, well, we hire people like pavement dwellers and cart pullers to handle and carry the corpses. Can they be expected to issue a document proving delivery of their service?”

A police station deposits a body in the mortuary of the nearest government hospital after a post-mortem. If the body remains unclaimed despite inquiries about relatives and related formalities, it can be disposed of within a week of taking permission from an ACP. “But some bodies go on to be in storage for more then seven months,” said police surgeon S N Patil.

A few years ago, IPS officer K Venkatesham had prepared a report on the problem, suggesting solutions. “A senior police inspector should have powers to release money to a junior officer. It is a simple enough thing. It is not every day that the police find unclaimed bodies,” said an officer. “The problem exists across the state. Why doesn’t the government bother to check how many policemen claimed money after disposing corpses?”

