Citizen Journalism impact: CDAC to issue COVID death certificates for ex-gratia

The special committee has been constituted as per the guidelines that were issued by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The Department of Health, Medical, and Family Welfare of Telangana issued orders, constituting the CDAC.

On November 6, 2021, through News Meter – Citizen Journalism, we brought to the kind notice of the Telangana Government regarding the delay in issuing the G.O for release of COVID-19 ex-gratia.

COVID 19 second wave has hit us all. Every family was affected in some way or the other. Due to the sudden rise in COVID cases, our health care facilities were not sufficient to treat all the affected people. Few private and corporate hospitals taking the advantage of patients' critical conditions have charged them with lakhs of rupees as treatment costs. To be able to save the family members the middle class and poor families had to sell all they had.

Amid the surge in COVID-19 cases in Telangana, several political parties, social, human rights activists demanded Telangana Chief Minister include COVID-19 treatment in the Aarogyasri scheme. In solidarity with all those demanding for inclusion of COVID-19 treatment in the Aarogyasri scheme, we also started a Change.org petition requesting Honorable Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao to include COVID-19 treatment in the Aarogyasri scheme.

Telangana CMO finally announced to include COVID-19 treatment in Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana and Aarogyasri scheme limiting to government hospitals likely to include private hospitals in the near future. We are still requesting the Telangana CM to include COVID-19 treatment in Aarogyasri for private hospitals as early as possible.

While our efforts to include COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals under the Aarogyasri scheme were going on Ministry of Home Affairs, Central Government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 50,000 to the families of deceased due to COVID-19.

Gaurav Kumar Bansal and Reepak Kansal (lawyer-cum-petitioners) have filed writ petitions in Supreme Court seeking ex-gratia compensation for the family members of the people who died of COVID-19.

As per MHA guidelines, all state governments started issuing the GOs and instructions to the concerned departments for the release of ex-gratia to the families of the persons who died of COVID-19. Most of the state governments have initiated the process of receiving applications for further processing. However, in Telangana, people are unable to find any such GO and the regarding information in the government websites.

On social media platforms people have been enquiring the Telangana Chief Secretary about the COVID-19 ex-gratia GO and the procedure for applications. However, they did not receive any response from the authorities.

On November 6, 2021, through News Meter – Citizen Journalism we brought to the kind notice of the Telangana government regarding the delay in issuing the GO for the release of COVID-19 ex-gratia. We also conveyed the same to advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal and sought his guidance regarding the delay. Subsequently, Gaurav Kumar Bansal contacted the concerning authorities to know the reason for the delay.

On November 5, we even filed a public grievance (ID: MINHA/E/2021/15973) with the Disaster Management Division of MHA regarding the same.

Finally, we were glad to know that Telangana CMO released GO for constitution of District Level COVID-19 Death Ascertaining Committee (CDAC) which will issue the official document for COVID-19 death in order to claim ex-gratia.

We would like to thank Telangana CMO for issuing the GO, NewsMeter team for their relentless support, and Gaurav Kumar Bansal and Reepak Kansal for their key role in demanding the Indian Government to provide support to the bereaving families of people who died due to Covid-19. We also immensely thank all our like-minded supporters.