TS govt to release Rs 50,000 ex-gratia amount for kin of Covid-19 deaths

Senior health officials said that the ex-gratia would not be denied to the families of persons who have died of Covid-19 because their death certificate has not mentioned that the cause of death was due to SARS-CoV-2.

Hyderabad: An ex-gratia amount of Rs 50,000 to the kin of all the persons who had died due to Covid-19 in Telangana will be released by the District Collectors from the funds available in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF).

To ensure the ex-gratia amount is released to deserving persons, the State government will follow the guidelines that were earlier framed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Senior health officials said that the ex-gratia would not be denied to the families of persons who have died of Covid-19 because their death certificate has not mentioned that the cause of death was due to SARS-CoV-2.

To address these difficulties, the State government has formed District Level Covid-19 Death Ascertaining Committees (CDACs), which will be locally headed by the District Collector, District Medical and Health Officer (DM&HO) and Superintendent of the District Headquarter Hospital.

The CDAC will act as a Grievance Redressal Committee for certification of death. The relatives of the deceased will have to submit an application through Meeseva centres for issue of the official document for Covid-19 death.

The District Collector will approve the ex-gratia assistance to next of the kin of the deceased person and all claims will be settled within 30-days of submission of required documents and disbursed through Aadhaar linked direct benefit transfer procedures.

The death certificate will be issued by the special committee after due examination and verification of all facts in accordance with guidelines issued in the references MOHFW and ICMR.

Deaths occurring due to poisoning, suicide, homicide, deaths due to accident etc will not be considered as Covid-19 deaths even if the Covid-19 was an accompanying condition.

To make the scope of providing ex-gratia broader and more inclusive, deaths occurring within 30 days from the date of Covid-19 testing or from the date of being clinically determined as Covid-19 cases, will be treated as ‘deaths due to Cvid-19’ even if the death took place outside the hospital. Covid positive patients who continued to get treated for more than 30 days and have subsequently died in the hospital will also be treated as Covid-19 death, officials said.

The CDAC committee will also examine the grievances of the next of kin of the deceased, and propose necessary remedial measures, including issuance of amended official document for Covid-19 death after verifying facts.

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