NASHIK: A bereaved family had to wait for over an hour with the body of a social activist on Tuesday afternoon at the newly-inaugurated electric crematorium at Amardham in Panchavati area as it developed a technical snag.However, the family's wait did not yield any results as the Nashik Municipal Corporation staff failed to set things right at the crematorium. The family had to ultimately perform the last rites in the traditional way.Madhav Karnik (86) passed away at a private hospital on Tuesday morning, just four days after his wife breathed her last. Karnik was patron of Insurance Employees' Union and several of the present union leaders had gone to the crematorium.Although the bereaved family did not speak on the issue, the union members were clearly irked by the turn of events at the crematorium."Karnik was a social activist throughout his life. The ecofriendly cremation would have been the best salute to his fulfilling life. But, due to the technical snag, this could not happen," said senior leader of the Insurance Employees Union Karunasagar Pagare.Pagare said that it was more agonising that the body was kept waiting for more than an hour because the crematorium staff could not fix the problem. "They are not aware of the technical parameters of the machine. They could not even detect the fault," he added.The crematorium staff admitted that they don't have any technical knowledge about the machine. "The machine was working properly till last night. We carried out a cremation at 9 pm on Monday. Karnik's body was the first one to arrive on Tuesday. We tried to start the machine several times but it failed. We have informed the NMC," said A T Khan, caretaker of the crematorium.He suspected that the technical snag must be in the connecting wire and the plug pin.Superintendent of the Nashik divisional office (East), Laxman Gaikwad , said he has already sent a team to the crematorium to ascertain the reasons for the snag and submit a report to the civic body. "We will ensure that the crematorium starts working again as soon as possible," he added.Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had digitally inaugurated this maiden electric crematorium of the city during his visit to Nashik on October 5. It was constructed under the Smart City project at a cost of about Rs 2.30 crore.

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