2011-February 28 Crematorium Project, Machhad

REPORT : 1 (Dated 28.02.2011)

THE CREMATORIUM PROJECT – MACHHAD

PURNATAT AGNI-SANSKAR-DHAM – MACHHAD

Village Machhad consists of 4 falias. Tad falia, Patel falia, Library falia and School falia, with the living population of 1433 (men 806, women 827) Machhad has two burial places. (We call ‘smashan’) One belongs to School falia and other belongs to Tad falia. Tad falia burial place utilises by Patel falia, Library falia, nearby Khandarak and others. Tad falia’s burial place is nearly full and hence most of the dead bodies are nowadays taken to Veraval crematorium at Navsari.

A need for the crematorium was discussed by the villagers in past, but the project never took shape, until last year (2010) Tad falia took initiative and commitment on board. Following tasks were carried out.
• Called meeting, formed committee to handle this project.
• Opened an account in a Vijaya Bank, our village bank.
• Engaged architecture Jagdish Shah & Co. for the building plan and estimates.
• Printed receipt books.
• Wrote letters to villagers living in UK, USA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, S. AFRICA, an appeal for donation.

We discussed the project with interested persons in UK, upon receipt of the letters and their appeal for help. We posted a letters to most of the villagers to express their opinion, their views, their attitudes and their ideas to make this project viable. Within 3 weeks, we received very positive and encouraging response. So we decided door to door collection of funds.

• We started with Bolton, Preston & Manchester, and collected £1499.75.
• We visited Walsall, Bilston, Wolverhampton, Tipton, Wednesbury, Dudley and West Bromwich and managed to collect £3698.
• We visited Leicester and Loughborough and collected £2097.
• We have received donation in Indian rupees in UK of RS.14500.
• We received generous donations from the married sisters of our village. Total of £921.25
• We wrote and appealed by letters and phone to our villagers, who lived far and remote locations to donates by post or direct deposit to nominated bank accounts (either in UK or India). We have received 753.25 so far.

So far the total collection in UK is 8248.00 Our target is to collect above £12,000 from UK alone.

We are in constant touch with the management committee members at Machhad.
• They managed to collect Rs. 1,07,895 and £1200 within the village .
• They have also consulted R C. Patel (a local MP) to obtain the government grants/help. for which we are very hopeful.
• They are also in touch with our villagers living in Canada, USA and New Zealand

We committee members are in touch with our villagers living in Canada, USA and New Zealand.
We updates them with the latest informations and encourage them to be generous for the donations.

If you are interested and need further details, or wants to make comments or to make donations, Please contact :

Bhikhubhai Somabhai Patel – Bolton 01204 528374 [email protected]
Maganbhai Budhia Dhiraj – West Bromwich. 0121 532 0787 [email protected]
Rameshbhai Narsinhbhai Patel – Leicester. 0116 220 7023 [email protected]
Chhibubhai Ravjibhai Patel – Machhad 0091 2637 223865