Calcutta, Feb 14 :     The death of 10-year-old Pommy has finally forced the city authorities to wake up to the need of a proper burial ground and crematorium for pets. When the Spitz died on February 6, the least that her grief-stricken 'family' members in south Calcutta wanted was to give Pommy a 'decent burial'. But as Siddharta and Shobhita Chakraborty were to soon find out, this was a mission impossible. When their search for a proper burial ground proved futile, they approached the chief municipal officer (health) of Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), who stated that there was 'no facility' for the burial of animals in the city. The senior official further advised the Chakrabortys to 'dispose it of, like everyone else does'. Hurt by this, Siddharta Chakraborty, a teacher of St Joseph's College, handed Pommy over to 'a local boy' to bury the pet at a deserted spot near Tolly's Nullah at Chetla, for Rs 800. He then decided to take up the matter with the civic authorities. Chakraborty contacted municipal comissioner Asim Barman on Monday morning and narrated the incident. 'Pommy was our daughter. Only we know what we had to suffer while hunting for a proper resting place for her. We do not want anyone else in the city to go through that agony again,' said Chakraborty. Responding to the plea, Barman summoned the chief municipal officer (health) and the chief engineer (conservancy) and instructed them to make immediate arrangements for the construction of a burial ground for city pets at Dhapa, beside EM Bypass. 'A crematorium for pets will be constructed there in due course,' promised Barman. According to a spokesman of the licence department, the number of licensed dogs in the city is around 20,000 and the CMC earns an annual revenue of Rs 5 lakh from them. 'But the actual number of pet dogs in the city would be more than two lakh,' he admitted. Besides dogs, the burial ground - and later the crematorium - would benefit domesticated cats, birds, deer, peacock, parrots and even monkeys. The CMC will monitor the functioning of the new set-up at Dhapa through NGOs. It has also been decided that if someone wishes to preserve the memory of a beloved pet, a portion of the wall can be leased for a plaque. But the size of the plaque will be fixed by the CMC.