Title - Facility to keep corpses at station

The railway station in the district is about to be the first in the state to have a chamber to preserve unclaimed corpses. The facility, set up by non-government organisation Dr Prabhat Das Foundation following up on a suggestion from Samastipur railway division officials, will be opened on the station premises on Tuesday. The chamber can accomodate one body at a time. The railway station falls under the Samastipur division of East Central Railway. Government Railway Police (GRP) rules state corpses have to be preserved for at least three days at stations for identification. If a body is not identified after 72 hours since discovery, the GRP has the authority to cremate it. However, with the station not having any facility to preserve corpses, the unclaimed bodies are left in the open at the station. As a result, passengers have a tough time visiting the station with stench emanating from the bodies. The divisional railway manager of Samastipur rail division, Satya Prakash Trivedi, told The Telegraph: "Dr Prabhat Das Foundation is active and sincere in its work in Darbhanga. The foundation takes its work by heart and extends help for good work. Around a month ago we had suggested the idea to install such a chamber and the foundation took the serious note of it. It brought the chamber for installation proving the foundation's dedication in ensuring the welfare of people." The state co-ordinator of Dr Prabhat Das Foundation, Mukesh Kumar Jha, said the chamber, which has been purchased from Chandigarh, reached Darbhanga on Saturday night. The Darbhanga railway station, like most other stations in the state, does not have any arrangement to preserve corpses for three days. Trivedi, the divisional railway manager, said: "Preserving a body is the duty of GRP who are instructed to keep the unclaimed corpses for at least three days. But we keep on receiving complaints of dead bodies stinking in the open on the station premises. Such foul smell and display of bodies on the station premises trouble passengers but we cannot do anything except ask the GRP for quick disposal of the body. But their hands are also fettered as they cannot do anything before 72 hours." Jha told The Telegraph: "Preserving bodies at railway stations is necessary for identification. Relatives and friends must be given time to identify their dear ones. The duty of preserving such unclaimed bodies at railway stations falls on the state government. But it has miserably failed to install such equipment, so we have extended our hand. The chamber has been bought from Chandigarh at an estimated cost of Rs 1.15 lakh. The chamber will become functional from Tuesday." Ghuran Jha, a passenger between Darbhanga and New Delhi since 1978, said: "I have not seen such facilities at any railway station in the state."