Odisha’s COVID Ex-Gratia Disbursement Figure Higher Than Official Toll; Check Details & SC Observations

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha 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.

This is much higher than the official toll from COVID-19 in the state, which was 8,689 on February 4. Another 22 deaths were reported on Saturday.

The state government told the SC that while it has disbursed COVID-19 ex-gratia to the kin of 10,621 people, it was assessing 3,017 more applications, of which 1,538 have been approved.

While monitoring COVID-19 ex-gratia payment across the country, a bench of Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna observed, “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.

The apex court asked states to ensure no claim is rejected on technical grounds. “States should make all endeavours to pay compensation, maximum within a period of 10 days from the receipt of claim,” it said.

The SC asked states to settle all claims before the next hearing on March 7 and submit the list to the Legal Services Authority.

The next of kin of COVID-19 victims are paid ex-gratia of Rs 50,000 following a recommendation of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

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

So far, 1,131 claims from Khurda have been settled, followed by Cuttack (848), Sundargarh (778), Ganjam (727), Puri (582), Balasore (525), Jagatsinghpur (485), Angul (458), Bargarh (433), Mayurbhanj (426), Jajpur (346), Kalahandi (333), Sambalpur (331), Nayagarh (317) and Jharsuguda (301).

AT A GLANCE

* COVID deaths declared in Odisha (till Feb 4): 8,689

* Ex-gratia disbursed: 10,621

* Applications received: 13,638

* Applications rejected: 327