Local plans must include burial places

PLANNING and providing for public cemeteries is an important component of a city plan of the local authority.

Unfortunately, this matter is often politicised and not properly addressed in many of the local plans in the country .

The Local Government Act 1976 puts the legal responsibility of providing public cemeteries on local authorities.

In fact, it even allows local authorities to identify land outside their area of jurisdiction for the facility.

Planning and designating cemetery land has to be done professionally and properly as cemetery land is culturally sensitive and has to meet several location and siteplanning criteria.

The Federal Department of Town Planning has published guidelines for the planning of both Muslim and non-Muslim cemeteries.

There should be sufficient land allocated for both cemeteries in the local plan of the city in tandem with its population growth.

Most of the existing non-Muslim cemetery land were reserved during the colonial period, and had reached critical levels for lack of space.

An expedient way is to designate and reserve additional and suitable land next to existing cemeteries as cemetery land, wherever feasible.

In fact, local authorities should also go a step further by actually constructing landscape cemeteries as a public and moral responsibility to their ratepayers.

It is totally unconscionable on the part of the local authorities which have been collecting property assessments from residents and then becomes totally oblivious to the need for such a facility for the ratepayer when he dies.

Very often, the family has to resort to expensive private cemeteries to bury their dead. It is also an offence