Firewood crunch hits funeral rites in Bhawanipatna

Firewood crunch hits funeral rites
Expressbuzz, July 1, 2009

BHAWANIPATNA: Non-Availability of firewood has hit the day-to-day life of the residents of Bhawanipatna. The depot of the Forest Corporation at Bhawanipatna is also not in a position to cater to the needs due to short supply.

On an average 100 quintal of firewood is required per day for the more than one lakh population of the district headquarters town which translated into 36,000 quintal per annum. This includes firewood for funeral purposes. As against it, in the last financial year, the Forest Department supplied only 3,000 quintal of firewood to the depot. As the salvaged woods supplied to the depot are in the shape of big logs, the customers cannot use them as it is.

Similarly there is no arrangement for sale of sized timber for houses and furniture. People have been facing numerous problems for cooking and funeral purposes due to such low supply of firewood. Incidentally as the Forest Department mostly supplies raw firewood, the supervisor and the staff attached to the depot are forced to pay the differential amount caused due to low weight after the wood dries up from their salary as recovery, a staff of the Forest Corporation attached to the depot alleged.

Between 2003 and 2008, on several occasions Bhawanipatna Municipality has demanded proper functioning of the corporation depot in its council meetings and allowing it to run the depot to cater to the growing needs of the residents. However, the Forest Department is not responding. The growing resentment among the public may lead to an agitation, vice-chairman of the municipality Chittaranjan Mandal warned. He said 30 to 40 persons die in Bhawanipatna town every month on an average. But for the funeral purposes people have to run from pillar to post to fetch wood. Citing an instance, he said for conducting funeral rites of a poor woman recently, volunteers approached the jail authorities and jail inmates welfare association when firewood was not available in the corporation depot. The funeral could be conducted late when the jail inmates donated 3.5 quintal of firewood.