One fine morning in the gated community of Gulberg Greens, a family experienced a tragic incident when one of their loved ones died. Besides their grief, the family had to deal with another big problem: finding a place for his burial. Unfortunately, despite claiming high standards and the provision of modern amenities, the housing society did not have a burial place.
With no place in their own community, the family was forced to go to nearby villages, asking strangers for a burial plot. They were lucky to find space, but sadly, that is not the case for everyone.
How complete is a community that offers everything except a final resting place? Such episodes expose the gaps in our urban planning. Talks of building smart and modern cities usually forgo one certain thing: death.
Sadly, this is not just an isolated incident. The master plans of most private housing societies in Pakistan lack any land allocation for graveyards. Some do have it in their layout plans, but it is rarely implemented. Though the Gazette of Pakistan (2023) has clearly defined land percentages for amenity plots, with graveyards being allocated 2% of the total land. Even Pakistan’s National Reference Manual (1986) had directed land allocation of 0.5 hectares per burial site—a standard later cited by Nepal’s 2013 urban planning guidelines. However, while existent, these laws are rarely enforced.
This absence of burial sites is not limited to private housing societies but extends to cities. Islamabad, a city of 2.3 million people, until recently had a single large public cemetery in H-11. Similarly, our most populous city, Karachi, home to approximately 15 million people, has around 200 cemeteries.
Yet six major city-run graveyards are already closed to new burials due to overcapacity. The situation is worsened by the increasing population of 3.6% per annum, causing rapid urban expansion along with an increasing need for graves in the long run. With a death rate of approximately 0.33%, Karachi alone needs over 10,000 new graves every year, with no preparation for their supply.
A public cemetery is not just a place for a corpse but a part of urban space, a quiet reminder of the full circle of life.
Graveyards are not merely part of religion or culture but represent legacy, continuity, and memory, forming an inevitable stage of life that, like other parts of a city, requires proper planning and regulation
What is driving the disappearance of these amenity plots is not their maintenance or negligence, but rather greed. When land prices are high, even death has to make way for profit. Why keep space for the dead when that same plot can be sold for a luxury villa or a commercial plaza? In Islamabad, the majority of the societies have sold off these amenity plots. Alarmingly, the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) own laws permit societies to buy their way out of this responsibility, stating that if a graveyard is located 5 km from a society, they can skip building their own.
The absence of graveyards carries a financial blow. When a community has no burial space, families are forced to manage; they hire transport and sometimes even pay extra for burial rights in unfamiliar places. Inflation has worsened the situation, with basic items such as shrouds, buses, tents, and food increasing by over 30 per cent. What should be a simple, respectful process becomes an exhausting, costly ordeal piled on top of grief.
With an increasing population, the demand for burial spaces also escalates. People are forced to pay black market prices for burial space. In Karachi, families report burial costs jumped from Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 35,000 in just a year. Even in Islamabad, families now pay Rs. 20,000 per burial, while in Rawalpindi prices reach Rs. 35,000. For many low-income households, these funeral costs force them to plead for donations in the time of their greatest sorrow.
Beyond the emotional toll, unplanned burial sites lead to health and environmental concerns. A study in Queens, New York, warns that each buried body can release 0.4–0.6 litres of toxic leachate per kilogram of flesh, which seeps and contaminates groundwater. For example, analysis of a well near a cemetery in Nigeria showed about 33% highly acidic and heavy-metal contamination. Meanwhile, a cemetery in South Africa showed a burial load of over 108,000 kilograms of mineral waste in soils.
Graveyards are not merely part of religion or culture but represent legacy, continuity, and memory, forming an inevitable stage of life that, like other parts of a city, requires proper planning and regulation.
Pakistan needs to take serious measures before this problem becomes unmanageable. Government bodies such as the Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency (PHATA) must strictly enforce the 2% land allocation rule. Development authorities and municipalities must ensure the allocation of these amenity plots. Housing societies must be obligated to set up boundary walls before a No Objection Certificate (NOC) is granted.
The Ministry of Housing and Works should integrate cemetery planning into the National Spatial Strategy and Urban Resilience Frameworks. Technical wings must ensure the integration of these setups into the design of layout plans (LOPs).
Institutes such as the Survey of Pakistan (SoP), using tools like GIS mapping, can help identify suitable sites. While planning burial sites, fair accessibility for everyone must be prioritised. In addition, Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) and the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) need to ensure health and environmental safety by assessing the risk for groundwater contamination.
Guidelines should be established for the distance of cemeteries from freshwater sources. Such interventions will help stop environmental contamination of these cemeteries.
Developers of housing societies need to be held accountable, while buyers should also look beyond the promise of comfort and convenience.
A city that fails to plan for where its people will rest in death fails them in life.