With no answer on how to bring back the vultures to eat their dead, the 1,500-strong Parsi community has decided to use solar panels at the 'Dakhma' or Tower of Silence in Bhoiguda where their dead are laid to rest, in order to generate more heat and hasten the process of decomposition.

In the past two months 15 Parsis died and 12 of them were laid to rest at the Bhoiguda Dakhma. Wildlife experts and birdwatchers said vultures found in their thousands in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the state only 15 years ago, vanished into thin air literally, their decline in numbers so steep they were declared a "critically endangered" species.

A State Forest Development Corporation official, K. Vara Prasad, said the "unnatural decimation" of the vulture was worldwide and everywhere in India too. A saddened president of the Tower of Silence at Bhoiguda, Hilla Moos, asked, "Where are the vultures? I have not seen them for many, many years."

Moos, also the president of the Fire Temple of the Parsis in Secunderabad, one of the oldest in Asia, said solar panels were ordered from Vadodara in Gujarat. "They got here a week ago, but as a full week of sunshine is required to instal and test them, we have put it off because of the cloudy weather."

There are two Towers of Silence in Hyderabad, one at Bhoiguda and the other at Parsigutta or Zamistanpur. Parsis here decided to copy the success of the solar panels in a Mumbai Tower of Silence at the Bhoiguda Dakhma first.

A body has to be taken to the Tower of Silence and handed over to pallbearers who carry it to a 'Pavi' or a platform. Only pallbearers are allowed inside the 'Pavi' enclosure. The body is left there to be eaten by vultures and allowed to be wasted by the elements of nature – wind, rain and sun – as per Parsi tradition. However, without the vulures doing their bit, it takes longer to dispose of the bodies.

The president of Parsi Anjuman, Gul Chenoy, said they tried to grow tall trees at the Parsigutta Tower of Silence to attract vultures. "We planted about 1,500 trees at the tower inside our four acres. But, some miscreants broke into the tower area, vandalised the place and uprooted the plants. We have placed a security guard there now," she said.

A member of the Birdwatcher Society of Andhra Pradesh, Siraj Taher, said the community even asked the federal government to allocate certain zoos where vultures could be bred in captivity and the government agreed to consider their request, but nothing came of it.