Religious leader, corporation tussle over cremation fees

A con­tro­ver­sy over the cost of cre­ma­tions at the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Site (CCS) is now brew­ing be­tween Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) chair­man Josi­ah Austin and the spir­i­tu­al head of the Satya Anand Ashram, Pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj.

Ma­haraj is claim­ing that be­reaved Hin­dus are be­ing made to pay more for open-air pyre cre­ma­tions at the CCS by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tion.

Austin, how­ev­er, re­fut­ed the re­li­gious leader’s “al­leged dis­crim­i­na­tion,” stat­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion has been serv­ing all re­li­gious back­grounds eq­ui­tably and re­spect­ful­ly.

Both men have been at each oth­er’s throats re­gard­ing the con­tro­ver­sial cre­ma­tion costs.

TPRC is one of five cor­po­ra­tions that of­fer cre­ma­tion ser­vices in the coun­try.

Ma­yaro/Rio Claro, Siparia, and Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro charge a min­i­mal fee. The Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion pro­vides free cre­ma­tion ser­vices.

Re­cent­ly, Ma­haraj post­ed on his Face­book page that the TPRC has been charg­ing Hin­dus ex­pen­sive cre­ma­tion rates on week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days.

He said this “harsh and un­fair price” was im­ple­ment­ed by for­mer TPRC chair­man Kwasi Robin­son and con­tin­ued un­der Austin’s “cal­lous and un­car­ing lead­er­ship.”

On week­days, the cre­ma­tion fee is $300. A pay­ment of $1,267 is charged on pub­lic hol­i­days. Week­ends at­tract a rate of $996.

The re­li­gious leader point­ed out that while the TPRC fees were im­posed to off­set se­cu­ri­ty and over­time costs for work­ers, oth­er cor­po­ra­tions have been pro­vid­ing cre­ma­tion ser­vices to the pub­lic at a low­er cost.

Ma­haraj claimed Hin­dus are made to pay more to prac­tice their re­li­gion even in death.

“It is clear that from the ex­cus­es of­fered for the cost of week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days at the site, it can right­ful­ly be as­sumed that the cor­po­ra­tion is be­ing poor­ly ad­min­is­tered. It is pass­ing strange that the same cor­po­ra­tion that can find mon­ey for Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions and a host of oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing lav­ish Christ­mas par­ties, can­not keep cre­ma­tion costs down,” Ma­haraj stat­ed on Face­book.

Ma­haraj al­so trained his guns on the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Vi­jay Ma­haraj, for re­main­ing silent on the prices im­posed on Hin­dus.

How­ev­er, Austin de­nied the TPRC was dis­crim­i­nat­ing against Hin­dus, stat­ing they have been serv­ing all com­mu­ni­ties with em­pa­thy, fair­ness and fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in a state­ment is­sued to Guardian Me­dia, last Wednes­day.

He in­sist­ed the costs were made with stake­hold­er en­gage­ment and op­er­a­tional sta­bil­i­ty in mind.

Be­fore im­ple­ment­ing the fees in 2021, Austin said they con­sult­ed with the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and the Fu­ner­al Homes As­so­ci­a­tion to en­sure com­mu­ni­ty in­put was con­sid­ered.

He said on week­ends a clerk would earn dou­ble time at $596, plus a $400 cre­ma­tion cost.

On pub­lic hol­i­days, triple time for a clerk would amount to $867 plus a $400 cre­ma­tion cost.

Austin said the TPRC sub­sidis­es part of these costs, cov­er­ing one staff mem­ber, se­cu­ri­ty and util­i­ties on week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days.

“These fees re­flect manda­to­ry over­time for staff based on agree­ments with the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, which re­quire dou­ble pay on week­ends and triple pay on pub­lic hol­i­days.”

On Wednes­day, Ma­haraj (V) ad­mit­ted that the Ma­ha Sab­ha was con­sult­ed on the fees by the cor­po­ra­tion un­der Robin­son’s tenure.

He said dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the TPRC de­cid­ed to in­crease the week­end cost of cre­ma­tions “be­cause there was a large vol­ume (of cre­ma­tions) and over­time to be paid,” he said, in­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ty.

Ma­haraj said they made noise for the re­open­ing of pub­lic cre­ma­tion sites af­ter the then PNM Gov­ern­ment pro­hib­it­ed open-pyre cre­ma­tions for COVID-19 vic­tims.

In ret­ro­spect, Ma­haraj ad­mit­ted the price was high, but they want­ed the ser­vice to be re­opened.

Ma­haraj promised to raise the fees with Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen in the com­ing days.