Mumbai: Parsis have asked the Bombay Parsi Punchayet to restore the defunct solar panels that were installed at the Doongerwadi cemetery at Malabar Hill to augment the ancient Zoroastrian system of sky burials.

The Doongerwadi cemetery, also called the Towers of Silence, are over 300-years old. The solar panels were set up as an experiment around 2001 when a near decimation of the vulture population tested the efficacy of the traditional funeral system that relies on the sun and carrion birds to dispose of dead bodies.

The panels were installed at three towers which are circular stone enclosures, or dakhmas, where the bodies are laid out. The panels concentrate heat varying from 120 to 125 degrees centigrade, desiccating the bodies.

The solar panels were non-functional around four years ago. A group of Parsis have offered to fund the restoration of the panels. They told the BPP, which manages the 50-acre wooded cemetery, that there are donors who are ready to finance the project.

After the vulture crisis, a section of the community set up a funeral centre at the Worli municipal crematorium. The solar cells offer an alternative to those who prefer the bodies to be dried under solar concentrators, said Dr Viraf Kapadia, resident of Nepean Sea Road. "The solar panels were approved by the high priests who said that the process does not violate religious traditions."

Viraf Mehta, chairman of the BPP, said the solar equipment broke down just before the covid pandemic and could not be repaired because of the lockdown and other factors. "We will consult the high priests before we do anything. The existing system is functioning without any hiccups even in the absence of the solar panels. We can install the solar panels ourselves if we have to," said Mehta.

Others said that the solar panels were not needed. "There was a fire once at one of the dakhma and it could have been caused by the heat from the solar concentrators," said Mehernosh Fitter who had formed a group called 'Save Doongerwadi Committee'.

An orthodox group had suggested the setting up of a huge aviary in the cemetery to breed carrion birds like vultures. "But it is a risky proposition because of concerns about avian diseases. I will write to the BPP if something can be done about the solar panels," said Dr Homi Dhalla of the World Zarathushti Cultural Foundation who was a member of a group that promoted the solar panels two decades ago.