Chennai gets 1st pet crematorium on Blue Cross campus in Velachery

Being the first-of-its-kind crematorium in Chennai, it will be a boon to pet owners. The crematorium was built at a cost of Rs 50 lakh. 

The facility has a prayer hall besides two furnaces to cremate the animals—the big one can hold five to six dogs (70 kgs) and the small one can hold two. If pet parents need the ash of the animal, it will be cremated in the small furnace. It will be open from 8 am to 5 pm every day. 

“This has been a long-awaited need. We didn’t have a proper place to bury pets. In its absence, people end up throwing the carcasses on roadsides. The new cremation system is smoke-free and follows Central Pollution Control Board norms,” said Vinod Kumar, general manager (admin), the Blue Cross of India. 

“Registration and cremation charges will be fixed within a week of the inauguration. We will even provide free service for those who cannot afford the cost. We are not doing this for profit but the project has to pay for the maintenance,” he added. 

The organisation got the consent of establishment in January 2020 from Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) while the approval got delayed due to the pandemic. The approval was received in March 2021. This system has an emission treatment system which, includes a secondary combustion chamber, wet/dry scrubber, mist eliminator and a dilution system. 

Rohini R, vice-president of Chennai Willingdon Corporate Foundation, said, “We supported the project financially. It was conceived by former chairman N Sankar and he sounded the idea to Dr Chinny Krishna. This is the first dedicated animal crematorium in south India. Though it took more than a year to get approval from TNPCB, the work was completed in a short time. This initiative was started after realising there is no place to bury the pets; there was a series of articles about people struggling to find space.” 

The crematorium will be inaugurated by L Ganesh, chairman of Chennai Willingdon Corporate Foundation (CWCF) in the presence of Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi.