- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE western Indian state of Gujarat has acknowledged more deaths caused by Covid-19 than its official tally, a court document filed on Monday (13) said.
The revelation has added fuel to the speculation that the actual death toll in the world’s second most-populous country is much higher than actually reported.
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India’s Covid-19 death toll is more than 475,000, next only to the US with nearly 800,000 deaths. Overall, the Asian nation has officially reported 34.7 million cases, second only to the US with over 50 million cases.
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According to Reuters and other media reports, based on figures gathered from crematoriums and cemeteries, a number of states including Gujarat undercounted their deaths when the second wave of the pandemic peaked between April and June since many people died at home due to a severe shortage of hospital beds and oxygen.
Gujarat, which is the home state of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, told the country’s Supreme Court that it had received 22,557 applications as of December 9 from the kin of the dead seeking compensation and 16,175 of them had been approved, according to an affidavit seen by Reuters.
As per the state’s latest health bulletin, the reported death count is 10,099.
According to Reuters, an official from the state with direct knowledge of the matter said applications had increased to more than 40,000 and nearly half of them had been approved. All of them would receive Rs 50,000 (£498) each.
The opposition Indian National Congress has been claiming throughout that the actual death toll is higher than that shown.
“We have been saying from the beginning that the Gujarat government has been underreporting COVID-19 cases and deaths,” said Manish Doshi, chief spokesperson of the party’s Gujarat chapter said, adding its surveys had shown at least 55,000 deaths.
Rajendra Trivedi, the revenue minister of the state which is ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for more than two decades now, did not respond to a Reuters’ request. The revenue department is paying the compensation to the families of those who died in the pandemic.
