MP cites CRS excess deaths data, demands compensation for Covid victims' kin

Time of India

15-05-2025

A member of Parliament's letter to the health ministry on compensation for kin of those who died of Covid considering the excess death data from the Civil Registration System report could open the proverbial Pandora's box. Even if 50% of the estimated 20 lakh excess deaths are attributed to Covid, the ex-additional gratia payout could amount to thousands of crores.
Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas has written to the health minister urging him 'to issue urgent directions to conduct a comprehensive nationwide audit to ascertain how many families have received the
ex-gratia compensation
vis-à-vis both official and estimated death counts'. Brittas sought 'a transparent and inclusive mechanism to ensure that compensation is extended to all next of kin of those reflected in the excess mortality data' along with 'relaxed documentation norms wherever necessary and a robust grievance redressal mechanism to enable excluded families to claim their rightful compensation'.
According to advocate Gaurav Bansal, who had filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court seeking ex-gratia payment for the kin of all Covid deceased, the National Disaster Management Authority said it did not maintain a state-wise list of claims when he sought information on the number of people who have received compensation. The Covid dashboard of the union health ministry updated till May 2025 shows 5.3 lakh deaths.
The petition cited Section 12 of the Disaster Management Act, which says that the family of a victim of a notified disaster is entitled to ex-gratia compensation of Rs 4 lakh. However, the government argued that with 'scarce resources' it would not be possible to pay Rs 4 lakh as that would be an additional burden which would reduce funds available for other health and welfare schemes being carried out for Covid.
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During the hearing of the petition in 2021, on the insistence of the Supreme court that compensation would have to be paid, the central government fixed Rs 50,000 as compensation for every Covid death to be paid by states and sourced from the respective state disaster response fund. The official Covid tally for 2021 was 3.3 lakh. If even half of the roughly 20 lakh excess deaths in 2021 are attributed to Covid, that would amount to about Rs 5,000 crore that would have to be paid out for Covid deaths in just one year.
The response filed by different states in court indicated significant undercounting of Covid deaths. For instance, Gujarat had approved 87,045 claims though its official toll at the time was 10,094. Andhra Pradesh had accepted 37,571 claims while the official death count was 14,527.
In March 2022, at the government's request, the Supreme Court fixed a time limit for compensation claims for Covid deaths. The limit was 60 days from the date of the order (March 24, 2022) for deaths that occurred before March 20, 2022, and 90 days for deaths occurring after the order. However, the court also directed that in case of extreme hardship, a claimant who could not make an application within the prescribed time could approach the district level grievance redressal committee.
At the time, the court was informed that states had received over 7.3 lakh claims. The court directed that all ex-gratia claims must be settled within 30 days of submission of required documents. On the issue of false claims for ex-gratia, the court asked the NDMA or health ministry to conduct a random scrutiny of 5% of the applications filed.