86,000 ‘excess deaths’ in West Bengal in 2021; four times official Covid casualties

West Bengal saw a significant spike in excess deaths in 2020-2021, surpassing official COVID-19 toll, especially in rural areas.

According to the 2021 Civil Registration System (CRS) report released recently by the Central Government, West Bengal registered a colossal 86,736 excess deaths in the pandemic years from 2020 to 2021, much higher than the official COVID-19 death toll for the State.

It is worth noting that the Delta wave hit the nation in 2021.

According to the COVID-19 Health Bulletin published by the West Bengal government in January 2022, a total of 20,619 deaths were reported by the government as the cumulative COVID-19 death toll in the State between March 17, 2020, and January 31, 2022.

However, the spike in the number of deaths recorded between 2020 and 2021 in the State, as per the CRS report, is over four times the recorded COVID-19 death toll. 

The spike in deaths in the State between 2020 and 2021 is also staggeringly higher than the spike between 2019 and 2020.

For context, the Ministry of Home Affairs recently released a report on ‘Vital Statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System’ for the year 2021, which contains data on registered births, deaths, infant deaths, and still births across the nation from January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021.

According to the report, cumulatively, almost 21 lakh more deaths were registered in the country in 2021 than in the preceding year.