Relief in sight
The Hindu
As the process for sanction of ex gratia for COVID-19 deaths is set to be rolled out, death count is likely to go up as affected families have been given various options to prove virus fatalities
The State government is going to take up the task of ascertaining COVID-19 deaths through the COVID Death Ascertaining Committees (CDAC) formed at the district level following the orders of the Central government and the National Disaster Management Authority for providing an ex gratia of ₹50,000 to the next of kin of those who died due to COVID-19 since March 2020.
The State government has so far (as of October 29, 2021) declared that 14,366 persons have died due to COVID 19. But not all have been given death certificates declaring the cause of death as COVID. Also, the abnormal rise in deaths registered in the districts suggests that the claims for sanction of official ‘COVID death’ certificates and the ex gratia could be more than the number of COVID deaths declared by the Health Department in the State.
For instance, according to responses by the Registrars of Deaths and Births to the Right to Information applications filed by Neelima Kota, director of Institute of Perception Studies, New Delhi, in seven districts – Nellore, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Kadapa, Kurnool, Srikakulam and Anantapur – 3,000 to 7,000 more death certificates were issued during April 2020 and March 2021 compared to the death certificates issued between April 2019 and March 2020. According to the RTI replies, the number of death certificates issued with COVID-19 and co-morbidities as the cause of death was only a few thousand in all the seven districts.