A service for purchasing cemetery plots through Gosuslugi is planned to launch by the end of the year. Is it feasible?
The Ministry of Digital Development announced the launch of a service for searching and purchasing burial plots on the Gosuslugi website. The pilot project includes 21 regions, and funds will be allocated for the system's development. 295,5 million rublesThe service is scheduled to launch on December 1st of this year. NeMoskva experts questioned the plan's timeline.
According to a representative of the Ministry of Digital Development, such a service "simplifies and expedites citizens' access to services during difficult times, reduces the administrative burden on government agencies, and increases transparency in burial site registration processes and the funeral services market."
According to the President of the Association of Crematoriums of Russia Alexey SuloevThis innovation will help reduce corruption risks in the allocation of burial plots and ease and reduce costs for the family of the deceased.
A NeMoskva expert from one of the regions included in the pilot project doubted the possibility of such a rapid implementation.
"I work at a cemetery that opened just 13 years ago: everything is clear and transparent, there's no confusion. The neighboring cemetery opened in the 1960s, and there's no order in either the burials or the documentation; sometimes the administration can't tell relatives where everything is. First, you have to conduct a manual inventory on the spot before you can even consider this kind of service," says the funeral home owner.
The interviewee added that city residents were promised an interactive map for finding graves two years ago, but it still hasn't arrived.
Guide Alina Sh., who conducts tours of two ancient cemeteries, noted:
"People have approached me with questions about how to find their ancestors' burial sites. They know for sure that their relatives are buried in this cemetery, where additional burials are still permitted. But there's no way to do it, because the old cemetery map was long lost. And how can this be digitized?"
To create new services in the National Spatial Data System (NSDS) planned to be uploaded data about 14 thousand cemeteries. Total in Russia 73,833 cemeteries.
