Rs 50000 Ex-Gratia Compensation For Death Due To Covid
By Ashwini Agarwal
First publised on 2021-09-24 15:07:10
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After the prod from the Supreme Court, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has recommended that Rs 50000 should be paid as ex-gratia compensation to the kin of Covid victims from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF). Although the Centre contributes 75% (90% in case of hill & NE states) to the SDRF, the fund is not exclusive to Covid management. States have to fund expenses for other notified disasters like droughts, floods and cyclones from the SDRF. Hence, even though the government had added Rs 29963cr as corpus addition to SDRF, being in the forefront of Covid management, states have been spending enormous amounts for managing healthcare facilities due to the pandemic. Hence, although the payout at Rs 50000 for the 4.5 lakh people who have died due to Covid will amount to only Rs 2250cr, one feels that a separate fund should have been created to make the ex-gratia payment and SDRF should have been kept only for expenses incurred in combating disasters.
Further, with reports that during the second wave of the pandemic, kin of Covid victims were made to pay astronomical sums to perform the last rites of the dead, one feels that the compensation is too low. Since the total payout is not astronomical, the NDMA should have recommended Rs 1 lakh as compensation. In many cases, especially in low income families, the only earning member might have died. A sizeable sum would have recouped their expenses and left them with some funds to run the family till they found an alternate source of income. But since the Supreme Court had left it to the government to decide the quantum, and since the government has accepted the NDMA recommendation, Rs 50000 only will be paid. In one way, the Centre is right. Since ex-gratia compensation is open-ended and since the pandemic is continuing, it cannot be said how many more people will die due to Covid. As the Centre argued, the amount has to be kept low so that the state is not burdened and relief is provided to the largest number of people.
Next, there must be transparency in certification of Covid deaths. Earlier, it was reported that some death certificates were being issued showing death due to a co-morbidity disease instead of Covid. That has to be corrected. If the victim had Covid but died due to co-morbidity, the death should count as due to Covid. The process must be made simple and fast and payments through direct transfer must be made within a few weeks of application. The government must also clarify whether the payout will be limited to poorer citizens or paid to all. Ideally, the government should increase the amount and limit it to the poorer sections of society. Care must also be taken to prevent corruption and ensure that the money reaches the beneficiaries.
