DW BUREAU / LUDHIANA The district administration Ludhiana on Thursday issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) document for the management of bodies of Covid-19 victims in Ludhiana. As per SOP, the a Covid cremation management cell has been formed in the Lord Mahavir Civil Hospital Ludhiana which is functioning under the supervision of MC Joint Commissioner Swati Tiwana and anyone can contact on the cremation cell's helpline numbers 9501500101, 7719712797 and 9501500102 for ensuring that family of the deceased face no problem in accomplishing the last rites. All the hospitals having L-II and L-III facilities have been strictly ordered to ensure whenever any Covid-19 patient succumbs, the body would be kept in the mortuary and the hospital would immediately ring Dr Harveer (98154-77868). None of the health facilities would release the body in case of inadequate arrangements of the transportation to ferry the body to crematoriums/cemetery. The hospitals can also contact at the helpline numbers for mortuary vans. Dr Harveer will inform the hospitals within one hour along with the allotted vehicle, crematoriums/cemetery, and time of arrival of the van. Further in the crematoriums/cemetery, Jasdev Sekhon (80542-00092) would ensure that teams going for cremation/burial will follow all safety protocols including wearing of PPE kits and others and cops would keep vigil on the maintenance of social distancing, masking at these places. Swati Tiwana said that the district administration is having 10 mortuary vans, out of which 5 have been arranged by the district administration, along with 5 vans by NGO Samvedna. In the coming week more mortuary vans and ambulances will be roped in. (editor@dailyworld.in)