Gujarat has officially accepted 10,000 more deaths caused by Coronavirus in their list of compensation paid to the families who lost a loved one to the pandemic. The list was submitted today in the Supreme Court, which asked the state government to make wider efforts to spread word about the scheme so the common man and those living in remote villages get to know about it.
The figures provided by the Gujarat government have pushed up the countrywide fatality count by 2 per cent. The total number of deaths in the state is now 19,964, up from the earlier figure of 10,098. The total number of Covid deaths in India today is 4.85 lakh.
Gujarat has received 34,678 applications for the Rs 50,000 compensation and payments have been made only in 19,964 cases.
Data from only Maharashtra and Gujarat is available and they were the two states heard at today's short hearing in the top court. The rest of the states are yet to file their affidavits.
The court said that it was "unfortunate" that Maharashtra – hit the hardest by the pandemic -- has paid compensation only for 8,000 of the 87,000 applications it received. The court has asked the state government to speed up the process.
