MUMBAI: The BMC has approved 17,052 claims for ex gratia for Covid victims as on January 28, almost 3% higher than the city’s official cumulative death toll of 16,581 reported as on that day.
The state too is expecting the final count of approved claims to exceed its official toll by at least 10%.
Maharashtra has so far disbursed the amount of Rs 50,000 each to 1.07 lakh Covid victim families. It is expecting the total approved claims to touch 1.6 lakh, a 10% increase from 1.42 lakh confirmed deaths reported. So far, the state has received 2.22 lakh applications, of which over 50,000 have been rejected for incomplete entries or for duplicate claims.
The BMC has got 36,648 claims, of which 17,052 have been approved for compensation, 9,026 rejected and 9,474 transferred to other districts.
Maha govt has liberal policy on Covid death payouts: Officials
The BMC has approved more claims for ex-gratia for Covid-19 victims than the official death toll, and Maharashtra expects its total approved claims to be higher than the official toll.
On Monday, additional chief secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas held a meeting with districts to expedite the claims. “We are expecting a 10% increase in the approved claims as against the deaths reported. The rise in cases, however, cannot be attributed to under-reporting but due to a liberal policy adopted for compensations,” said a senior official. The official explained that unlike the requirement of a Covid-positive report for certifying a death, the compensation is being granted liberally. The official said that even if a person committed suicide within a month of suffering from Covid, the individual is eligible for compensation. Or if a Covid-positive person tests negative and develops lung issues later and dies of that ailment in a month’s time, he/she is granted compensation. “The number of applications are not an indicator of the rise in the final numbers, but there are many small districts which could see higher applications being cleared as against the deaths reported,” the official said.
To point out a few instances, Nagpur Municipal Corporation has received over 12,000 applications against 6,055 deaths recorded, while Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation has received 5,889 applications for 1,636 deaths recorded in the area. Districts like Solapur have seen double the number of claims (11,000) compared to official deaths (5,631); Jalgaon has got 7,746 applications against 2,718 official deaths.
Citing an example, Dr D S Potode, deputy district health officer of Jalgaon, said many who couldn’t get tested, or those with HRCT positive reports but Covid-negative reports may not have been certified as Covid deaths. “But they will all be eligible for compensation,” he said. He said many who came from adjoining districts but died in Jalgaon have applied for compensation on both districts.
In Mumbai, civic officials said the count of approved pleas is likely to go up further, but only marginally. The city has often been credited for a relatively low undercounting factor. Dr Mangala Gomare, BMC’s executive health officer, said that the city had a robust mechanism of reporting and multiple rounds of reconciliation were done to ensure there was no undercounting.
Epidemiologist Dr Chandrakant Lahariya said it is acceptable that the number of actual deaths would be higher than official deaths in any setting. “Even in the best of systems, the WHO estimated that the actual deaths could be 1.5 to 1.6-fold higher. However, social security measures such as granting of ex-gratia should be liberal because people have suffered during the pandemic and testing was not a possibility,” he said.
