LUCKNOW: The UP government informed the Assembly on Monday that additional 18,359 deaths because of Covid pandemic have been registered in its record. This number is over and above the 23,512 deaths recorded on the Covid portal.
The response came to the query posed by Samajwadi Party MLA from Nagina, Bijnor, Manoj Kumar ‘Paras’ who claimed that the number of deaths because of the pandemic was much more than what was depicted by the state government. He also questioned if the state government had any plans to get the number of Covid deaths examined by an independent agency.
Responding to his query, deputy CM Brajesh Pathak said that following the Supreme Court directive, the state government invited applications from families who suffered a casualty during the pandemic. Accordingly, the state government received 41,871 applications. This way, 18,359 additional deaths have been recorded by the government.
Paras claimed that given the state of affairs of the health infrastructure during the first and second wave of pandemic, lakhs of people were reported to have succumbed to the frequently mutating virus. He quoted figures from some of the districts like Prayagraj (734), Meerut (1,876, Ghaziabad (11,718) and Lucknow (13,000).
“These are just a handful of districts where the death certificates were issued by the municipal corporation. We are yet to take into account death certificates issued by nagar palikas and the government hospitals.
“The ruling BJP was trumpeting its achievements while scores of people were dying because of shortage of oxygen, medicine and doctors,” he further said.
