Gujarat has officially accepted 10,000 more coronavirus deaths with figures for compensation to families who lost loved ones to the pandemic. The figures were submitted today to the Supreme Court, which asked the government to stage a broader effort to disseminate information about the plan so the common people know about it.
Figures provided by the Gujarat government pushed the death rate nationally to 2%.
The total death toll in the state so far is officially 10,098. But the state compensated Covid for 19,964 deaths. The total death toll from Covid in India today is 4.85 lakh.
Gujarat received 34,678 applications for compensation of Rs 50,000 and payment was made in only 19,964 cases.
When the Gujarat government said it was using All India radio and local radio stations as media, the court mocked. “Who listens to the radio”, interrogates the bench of two judges when hearing a petition about the delay in payment of compensation for Covid deaths.
“Why aren’t there any ads in the local newspapers? How would you tell the average person? They are waiting for Rs 50,000. There should be proper advertising in all newspapers, Doordarshan and others. local channel with all the details,” the judge said.
In October, the Supreme Court approved a payment of Rs 50,000 to the families of those who have died of Covid-19, an amount paid by the Center and the state more than and above the amount paid by the Center and the state. The state has paid under various programs.
But data from Maharashtra and Gujarat is only available so far, and they are the two states that are featured in today’s brief hearing. The rest of the states have yet to file their affidavits.
The court said it was “regrettable” that Maharashtra – who has been hardest hit by the pandemic – only compensated 8,000 of the 87,000 applications it received. The court asked the state government to speed up the process.
The government of Maharashtra said it would settle 50,000 applications by December 30. But that was not accepted by the court, which directed the state government to process the remaining applications within a week.
During the final hearing on December 6, the benches of Judges MR Shah and BV Nagarathna expressed their displeasure at the affidavit submitted by the Maharashtra government.
“More than 1,000 deaths have been recorded in Maharashtra but only 37,000 applications have been received. No one has been compensated yet,” Justice Shah said, calling it “ridiculous” and unacceptable. .
The next hearing in the case is on December 15.
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