The Central Institute of Forensic Science will push for an amendment to the law on dealing with unidentified bodies to reduce congestion in cemeteries.
Director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science Pol Col Songsak Raksaksakul said about 100 unidentified bodies are recorded in hospitals each year.
He said the bodies include murder victims or people who died in accidents or in hospitals whose relatives do not claim them.
Pol Col Songsak said more than 2,000 such bodies were buried in the cemetery at Nakhon Nayok until it ran out of space and many of those remains were unearthed and then placed in separate containers at Thammasat University Hospital and the institute's office.
He said the solution to resolve the issue is to amend the law on unidentified body management so to allow the corpses to be cremated after all necessary information including DNA information has been stored.
At present, unidentified bodies are autopsied, stored for a period of time to allow for relatives to claim the body.
But if not claimed, a body is buried by a local charitable foundation while local police conduct an investigation in a bid to identify the deceased.
"One problem is the police officer who runs the investigation into trying to identify bodies may be transferred to another area so cases are halted," he said.
Another issue is the cost associated with retrieving a body which is too high for some families to pay so they leave the body unclaimed. The average cost is about 5,000 baht and that includes storage fees and other management services.
The Central Institute of Forensic Science can shoulder the cost if they run an autopsy but for other hospitals, the cost needs to be covered by relatives.
As a result, the number of unidentified bodies keeps increasing, said Pol Col Songsak.