Know Why COVID-19 Ex-Gratia Claim Figures Are Higher Than Official Toll In Odisha, Other States

Bhubaneswar: The number of COVID-19 victims whose kin have been given ex-gratia by various state governments far exceed their official toll from coronavirus.

Take the case of Odisha. The state government submitted before the Supreme Court on Friday that it has disbursed COVID-19 ex-gratia to the kin of 10,621 victims so far.

The official COVID-19 toll in the state is, however, far less: 8,711 as on February 5.

Many states have submitted higher figures for COVID-19 ex-gratia claims before the SC than their official toll from the virus.

Gujarat, against 10,089 official deaths, received 1,02,230 ex-gratia claims. Over 89,000 of these claims were received in the last fortnight.

Maharashtra received 2,13,890 ex-gratia claims against 1,42,705 official COVID-19 deaths as on January 18.

The next of kin of COVID-19 victims are paid ex-gratia of Rs 50,000. The SC passed an order on June 30 last year that entitled such families to receive compensation.

The SC order also expanded the definition of COVID-19 deaths by including even those deaths recorded 30 days after a person tested positive.

So, many compensation claims are for deaths that were not linked to COVID-19 by the audit committees of states. That explains why the number of ex-gratia claims have far exceeded the official toll in many states.

Taking note of it, a bench of Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna observed on Friday, “In some states, deaths are lower while claims are high. It can’t be that these claims are false. This means the official statistics are not true. States will have to redo official figures…”

The SC made the observation while going through a status report prepared by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, which indicated a jump in number of claims across states.

In Odisha, according to the COVID-19 ex-gratia assistance payment system (CAPS), 13,638 applications have been received from 30 districts. Of these, 12,338 claims have been approved, while 327 were rejected.

Following are the ex-gratia claims and official toll in some of the districts, as on February 4:

Khurda: 1,131 (ex-gratia claims)/1,655 (official toll)

Cuttack: 848 (ex-gratia claims)/881 (official toll)

Sundargarh: 778 (ex-gratia claims)/611 (official toll)

Ganjam: 727 (ex-gratia claims)/497 (official toll)

Puri: 582 (ex-gratia claims)/472 (official toll)

Balasore: 525 (ex-gratia claims)/308 (official toll)

Jagatsinghpur: 485 (ex-gratia claims)/332 (official toll)

Angul: 458 (ex-gratia claims)/409 (official toll)

Bargarh: 433 (ex-gratia claims)/342 (official toll)

Mayurbhanj: 426 (ex-gratia claims)/296 (official toll)

Kalahandi: 333 (ex-gratia claims)/213 (official toll)