The Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) has decided to add a third electric incinerator to its crematorium within four months as more people have preferred to use the new facility over the traditional open cremation. 

Officials at the trust said they have already written to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation in this regard. According to the trust, 1,410 dead bodies have been cremated in the electric crematorium since it was commissioned on January 25. 

The PADT plans to procure the new machine from the Indomen Engineering Service, Kolkata—the same manufacturer that had supplied the two machines currently in use. “We will call tender by mid-July to purchase the machine,” said Govinda Tandon, member secretary at the PADT. The facility, which is currently using two incinerators alternatively, will be using two machines at once after the installation of the third one, said Tandon. It costs Rs3,200 to cremate a body in the electric crematorium, while cremating on a pyre costs around Rs10,000.