Amid rising COVID-19 related fatalities, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar has come up with an eco-friendly cremation cart, fitted with stainless steel insulation for ensuring no heat loss and less wood consumption. The cart has been developed in collaboration with a company Cheema Boilers Limited, a university release said on Thursday.

“The technology behind it is based on the wick stove, in which wick after lighting glows yellow and this is converted into smokeless blue flame after installing the combustion air system over these wicks,” it said. The stainless steel trays on both sides of the cart are for easy ash removal. The cart is equipped with combustion air for primary and secondary hot air systems, it further said.

The disposal is completed within 12 hours including cooling as against 48 hours, said Harpreet Singh, Dean, IIT Ropar. “It works at a temperature above 1000°C that ensures complete sterilisation. It has stainless steel insulation on both sides of the cart for no heat loss and less wood consumption,” he said.

“Usually, wood costs about Rs 2,500 for disposing of one body and poor families sometimes try to get by with much less and end up having to dispose of partially burnt bodies, or even whole corpses, in rivers,” the dean said. The cart has wheels and it can be transported anywhere without much effort, he added.

Harjinder Singh Cheema, MD, Cheema Boilers Ltd said, “We are providing the simplest and cheapest way of cremation, which can be performed within half of the wood required now and can reduce the carbon footprint by half.” It can also be used on LPG using domestic gas cylinders, he further said.