When Even the Dead Cannot Find a Place to Rest

Pakistan's Growing Graveyard Crisis Demands Urgent Urban Planning Reforms

By Hammad Ullah Mujtaba

A society’s commitment to human dignity is measured not only by how it treats its citizens during their lifetime, but also by how it honours them after death. In Pakistan’s rapidly expanding metropolitan centres, however, a disturbing reality is emerging: finding a burial place for a deceased loved one has become an exhausting and deeply distressing ordeal. What was once a routine civic responsibility is fast turning into an urban planning crisis.

Cities such as Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad continue to expand outward through new housing developments, commercial projects and private residential schemes. Every day, newspapers, electronic media and digital platforms advertise new housing societies offering plots of every size and price. Yet amid this unprecedented urban growth, one essential public necessity has been largely overlooked: adequate land for cemeteries.

For grieving families, the consequences are immediate and painful. The loss of a loved one is emotionally overwhelming, but the anguish intensifies when relatives must spend hours searching from one cemetery to another in the hope of finding an available grave. Funeral arrangements often remain uncertain until burial space is confirmed. In many cases, funeral prayers have to be delayed or rescheduled because a suitable burial place cannot be located. During the hot summer months, prolonged delays also raise concerns about the dignified preservation of the deceased, making an already traumatic experience even more distressing.

This challenge reflects far more than a shortage of land. It reveals the absence of long-term planning for one of the most fundamental public services every society must eventually provide.

*Urban Expansion Without Long-Term Vision*

Pakistan’s urban population continues to grow rapidly, yet cemetery planning has failed to keep pace. While housing societies carefully allocate land for commercial centres, schools, parks and recreational facilities, cemetery planning often receives little attention or is treated merely as a regulatory formality.

Earlier planning regulations in Punjab required every new housing scheme to reserve land for cemeteries. Later amendments permitted multiple housing schemes to establish shared burial grounds outside their individual boundaries. Unfortunately, implementation has remained weak, and in many areas these shared cemeteries have never materialised.

Planning authorities should revisit these regulations. Future housing schemes must reserve substantially larger areas for burial grounds based not on present demand alone, but on projected population growth over the next fifty to one hundred years. Cemetery planning should become an integral component of urban master plans rather than an afterthought.

*Private Cemeteries Cannot Replace Public Responsibility*

Another important reality is often overlooked. Cemeteries developed inside private housing societies generally serve only registered residents, plot owners or members of those communities. These burial grounds are financed through the purchase price of residential plots and therefore operate under private regulations.

Consequently, they cannot be regarded as a substitute for public cemeteries. Governments at provincial and local levels must continue to establish sufficiently large public burial grounds where every citizen, regardless of residence or financial status, has equal access to dignified burial.

*Illegal Encroachments Continue to Reduce Burial Space*

The shortage of burial land has been aggravated by decades of illegal encroachments. In many cities, portions of cemetery land have gradually been converted into commercial shops, residential buildings and other unauthorized developments. In some cases, original cemetery boundaries have virtually disappeared.

Provincial governments should undertake comprehensive land verification using authenticated revenue records, cadastral maps and modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Every cemetery should be digitally mapped, its legal boundaries permanently protected and all encroachments removed through impartial enforcement of the law. Cemetery land must receive the same level of legal protection as any other essential public infrastructure.

*Simplicity in Graves Can Preserve Valuable Space*

An often ignored contributor to the shortage of burial space is the growing trend of constructing elaborate graves. Marble structures, raised platforms, boundary walls, metal fencing and oversized monuments occupy considerably more land than necessary.

Islamic teachings encourage simplicity, humility and equality in burial practices. Public authorities, religious scholars and urban planners should jointly develop national standards governing grave dimensions and cemetery layouts. A modest headstone bearing only the deceased’s name and dates of birth and death should ordinarily suffice. Discouraging excessive construction would significantly increase the long-term capacity of existing cemeteries while preserving the dignity and equality that Islamic burial traditions emphasize.

*A Modern Cemetery Management System Is Overdue*

Perhaps the greatest administrative deficiency is the absence of a coordinated cemetery management system. In most Pakistani cities, there is no central database showing which cemeteries have available burial spaces, to whom families should contact, or what procedures must be followed.

Every district should establish a Central Cemetery Management System integrating all municipal, waqf and registered cemeteries into a single digital platform. Real-time information regarding available plots, cemetery maps, grave records and burial procedures should be accessible through a 24-hour helpline, mobile application and online portal.

Each grave should receive a unique identification number linked to a computerized record and GIS location. Families would then be able to locate graves easily in future while authorities could maintain accurate records and prevent duplication or misuse of cemetery land.

At the local level, Union Council Cemetery Committees should oversee maintenance, landscaping, record keeping and public complaints under the supervision of district administrations. A one-window service for burial permits and grave allocation would eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy during one of the most difficult moments in a family’s life.

*Expanding Public Cemetery Infrastructure*

Recent initiatives such as model cemeteries represent positive progress, but they remain insufficient for rapidly growing urban populations. Major metropolitan areas require multiple large public cemeteries strategically located around the city with proper road access, public transport, water supply, electricity, parking, funeral facilities and long-term expansion plans.

Governments should also reserve additional land for future cemetery expansion before urban development consumes all available space. Planning for burial needs decades in advance is not a luxury; it is an essential component of responsible governance.

*A Matter of Human Dignity*

Every individual eventually requires only a small piece of land, yet ensuring that space is available has become one of the overlooked responsibilities of modern governance.

The graveyard crisis should not be viewed merely as a municipal inconvenience. It touches questions of human dignity, public administration, religious responsibility, land management and sustainable urban development. Addressing it requires coordinated action by provincial governments, local authorities, planning agencies, religious institutions, revenue departments and civil society.

A nation that plans carefully for housing the living must also plan responsibly for honouring its dead. Providing every citizen with a dignified final resting place is not simply a logistical obligation—it is one of the clearest expressions of a compassionate and civilized state.