Member of Parliament Kartikeya Sharma on Thursday raised the issue of setting up of ‘green crematorium’ in every village in the country in an aim to avoid pollution and reduce deforestation. Making a special mention in Rajya Sabha, Kartikeya Sharma said that ‘green crematorium or ‘woodless cremation’ is the need of hour as the main drawback of traditional method of open pyre is air pollution. “I would request the government to encourage green cremator which uses only cowdung, hence, we can save our environment and ecology,” the MP said. Kartikeya Sharma urged the government to take necessary steps to arrange funds for panchayat, municipality and corporation to set up green crematorium in all villages. Justifying his demand, Kartikeya Sharma said that India has only 28 trees per person compared to China’s 102 and USA’s 716. “But for cremation we need two trees (400 to 600 kg). If we consider that there are about 110 lakh deaths annually in India of which 70% are cremated, that needs wood consuming around 260 crore kg or 30 million trees. While burning the wood, there is also emission of 8 millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide gas and 500,000 tonnes of ashes which is not good for the environment.” He mentioned that studies reveal that a normal cremation needs 300-600 kg of firewood, litres of ghee, 300-400 cowdung cakes, and in the process the total cost of per cremation may go over Rs 10,000 while it would take only Rs. 3 lakhs to set up a green crematorium. That’s a one time cost.”